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Posted on 06/23/2026 4:30:13 PM PDT by Revel
Tuesday’s decision in Pung v. Isabella County squarely rejects an argument that the longstanding use of tax foreclosure sales as a method to collect unpaid real-estate taxes violates the takings clause of the Fifth Amendment or the excessive fines clause of the Eighth Amendment.
The specific problem that gives rise to the case is the reality that a tax foreclosure sale typically, perhaps invariably, produces a sale price far lower than the price that would come from the ordinary sale process of listing the property with a broker and marketing it over the course of weeks (or months). In this case, for example, Michael Pung’s home was auctioned to recover about $2,200 in unpaid real-estate taxes. The home, with an assessed value of about $194,000, sold at the auction for about $76,000. Under the existing regime, Pung received the surplus – the difference between the sale price and the amount of taxes. Pung’s claim is that the state also owes him the difference between $194,00 and $74,000 as compensation, even though the state sold the property to a third party at the sale and has nowhere other than general tax revenues from which to recover that sum.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote for the court, joined by all of the justices except Clarence Thomas. Alito starts by considering the takings problem, which he describes as “whether ‘just compensation’ [required by the takings clause] following a tax sale is measured by the price that the property fetched at auction or its hypothetical fair market value.” For the court, “the auction price is the proper baseline, at least when the procedure is fair in light of our country’s history of tax sales.”
(Excerpt) Read more at scotusblog.com ...
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The county should at least have to pay the price they have it accessed for. Otherwise refund all overpaid taxes to the property owner.
Never give up the con.
“In a landmark 2012 decision (NFIB v. Sebelius), the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) “individual mandate”—which required Americans to have health insurance or pay a penalty—by ruling that the penalty legally functions as a tax under Congress’s constitutional taxing power.”
You should be able to hand the county the keys for 80% of the assessed value.
No insider trading and the county should have to make their best effort to get a good price, but foreclosures often have poor maintenance and various other problems. And no snagging the equity over the tax bill.
> The county should at least have to pay the price they have it accessed for. <
My county plays a neat little trick. The under-assess most houses, then raise the millage to even things out.
So let’s say your house has a fair market value of $225,000. You get a letter from the county assessing your house at $100,000. You think you’ve got a sweet deal. But you haven’t.
Of course the county is run by Democrats.
When this happens - and it happens often - it begs the question.... Why didn't Pung sell his home to avoid foreclosure? Or get a tax loan to pay his property taxes?
Some people are too stupid to own property.
If the auction was properly advertised, then $76,000 is what the property was worth. The assessed value is in error.
AI...
https://www.perplexity.ai/search/c471f35a-dc76-43da-804b-4e09ad72210d
So the county took away his homestead exemption. He took the country to court and won.
The county still took his property away anyway.
I retract my earlier suspicions about Pung.
That is the correct answer
$2,200 is a pittance. Put it on a credit card and keep your home.
No one likes paying taxes but they are what they are. If I am too stubborn to pay a small tax bill, it’s not going to work in my favor.
<>The case is unlikely to make any great jurisprudential splash, as it validates what has been a common practice of all levels of government in this country for almost three centuries.<>
Man/woman marriage was “common practice” and validated for far more than three centuries.
Like Roe, Obergefell is constitutional nonsense and must go.
I have seen abuses of the process in the past. They did not generally involve single family homes.
The tax liens ( in Arizona) were supposed to be published. The local official responsible simply posted them on a bullitin board in the courthouse. The good old boy network knew about it. Lots of them ended up with marginal properties for very little in taxes.
Eventually the official was found to be crooked and a new one was elected. She published the tax liens in the local paper, where there was a much more fair competition for them.
I ended up with a fair number over the years, and did well.
Not one was for a singe family home. Most were for distressed desert properties without power or water.
“Why didn’t Pung sell his home to avoid foreclosure? Or get a tax loan to pay his property taxes? Some people are too stupid to own property.”
It pays to know the facts before offering an opinion.
Read Justice Thomas’ opinion.
https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/25pdf/25-95_dc8e.pdf
See my #13
“When this happens - and it happens often - it begs the question.... Why didn’t Pung sell his home to avoid foreclosure? Or get a tax loan to pay his property taxes?”
I bought an acre of land in a tax sale for $750. It was next door to the house I bought. Later found out the people who abandoned it moved right down the street. They gave up an acre of land with no liens or mortgages (I checked) over $250 A YEAR property tax. There was a dilapidated house on it and the yard was a junkyard, but over time I cleaned it off and had the house demolished and now it’s a very nice, clear lot.
It pays to know the facts before offering an opinion.
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True. But in true FReeper fashion, I expressed my opinion first.
But.... see post 8. I later found out what happened.
You will own Nothing,
and you better act happy.
Property taxes are rent paid to the taxing authority.
“You will own nothing....”
If the government can take our homes for their taxes, we don’t own them.
$2,200 is a pittance. Put it on a credit card and keep your home.
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yeah - I’m wondering what’s wrong with this guy. Call the tax guys and work a deal, say 3$300 a month until done.
Paid off a hospital bill like that about 25 years ago. $100 a month until done, gal I was working with was happy to get it.
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