Posted on 04/26/2023 2:46:13 AM PDT by linMcHlp
Tyler v. Hennepin County [Minnesota]
As an elderly woman living alone, Geraldine Tyler was doing just fine in the one-bedroom condo she owned in Minneapolis. That is, until 2010, when a rise in neighborhood crime and frightening incidents near her home alarmed Geraldine and her family and prompted her hasty move to a safer area, where she rented an apartment in a senior community.
Finally Geraldine felt safe and comfortable again, surrounded by other seniors. But the property taxes on her condo started piling up. Soon Geraldine accrued a $2,300 tax debt; and the government started tacking on thousands of dollars in interest, fees, and other penalties until the total bill reached $15,000 in 2015. At that point, Hennepin County, Minnesota, seized Geraldine’s condo and sold it one year later for $40,000. Instead of keeping the $15,000 it was owed and refunding Geraldine the sale surplus, the county kept all of the $40,000.
(Excerpt) Read more at pacificlegal.org ...
Why didn’t she sell the condo when she moved out?
or keep up on taxes?
The government seized her property. She didn’t own anymore.
IMO, because one owes back taxes and any interest/fines/penalties AND THEY GET PAID ON SALE of the property, what is the reason why government gets to keep the entire proceeds? It is legalized (or not) theft of personal property.
My guess is a relative moved into the condo, but they were a deadbeat. Geraldine may not have known there was a problem until the deadbeat couldn’t hide it anymore.
I’ve seen the foreclosure process up close in commercial real estate on behalf of a client. The entity that forecloses on the property — whether it be a bank or municipal government — isn’t just entitled to the amount they’re owed by the property owner. It’s also entitled to collect legal fees, administrative costs related to the foreclosure, and any carrying costs for the property while they held it before it was sold.
The article mentions "Geradine and her family", so there may have been some arrangement with a grandkid or an in-law to stay there while the condo remained in Geraldine's name.
That's the only reason I can think of that she didn't sell it in 2010.
Processing and attorneys fees? They have many boxes they can check
If she could afford to rent in a senior community, how could she not afford to pay taxes?
And GREAT-Grandmother? Was there no one in the family to help her pay that tax debt? Depending on the size of the family, they could have all contributed a bit. And if family were living there while it remained in her name, why didn’t they at least do that?
Lot of things don’t make sense here.
I agree.
This line is vague: "Soon Geraldine accrued a $2,300 tax debt"
What does "soon" mean? One year? Three years?
But it appears Geraldine thought someone else was going to pay those property taxes, and whoever that someone else was didn't do it.
It seems that a government foreclosure process under Minnesota law is unique. There are many points during the foreclosure process when the property owner can intervene on his or her behalf to remedy their default — and they are even given an opportunity to pay off the debt under a 5 or 10 year period.
At one specific point in the process — after the debtor has refused to avail herself of any of these remedies — it ceases to be a “foreclosure” and effectively becomes a property abandonment process. The Minnesota statutes governing the abandonment process date back to the 1880s when it was apparently common for farmers to abandon their Minnesota farms and move west to the Dakota territories and settle on new land given to them under the Homestead Act. The property was considered abandoned because the Minnesota courts and government authorities had no recourse and no mechanism for even contacting these people.
In this case, the Federal courts simply ruled that the foreclosure/abandonment process was governed by Minnesota law. Importantly, the courts ruled that the sale of the condo was not a violation of the “Takings Clause” for a clear legal/technical reason — in that the debtor no longer had any ownership claim on the property after they passed the specific point in the Minnesota process where it went from a “foreclosure” to an “abandonment.”
But Minnesota had a clear means to transfer title. They also had clear knowledge of who had the title and was not paying the taxes.
You are correct. This is all about what the limits of the Minnesota law is.
Many state's law is the excess value goes to the former property owner.
These evections over taxes is one of the root causes of homelessness...
...this tax burden on the elderly/disabled has to be addressed.
Flip’s, Geraldine reminds me of Penny Marshall’s father who was once quoted as saying [paraphrased] “if you can get people to laugh at something, anything can become acceptable.”
Case in point. It really ain’t funny if viewed through the magical eyeglasses of 2023...
Stole her property.
Really?
Not, “Why did the government keep everything instead of just what they were owed”?
It doesn’t really matter whether the government knew or didn’t know how to contact the owner of the property. All that mattered was that the foreclosure process involved a series of steps (say, ten) under state law … and that after a specific step in the process (say, the eighth one), the former property owner no longer had any claim to the property because the title had already been transferred.
The courts ruled that the government didn’t sell the property to satisfy the debt. The debt had already been satisfied under my hypothetical Step 8, and the former property owner no longer had a tax debt to her name.
By the time the process got to Step 10 (the sale of the property), the government was basically just selling surplus property rather than satisfying a tax lien.
This sounds like a case that’s been brought on behalf of a negligent fool — just because some legal advocates are looking to pursue their own political/legal agenda.
bttt
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