Man Loses home over $134 Tax Bill.

[Mani]

This is an article that shows the entire system is a racket, which shoves people out of their homes.

You NEVER truly own your home. Just miss a $100 tax bill and it will be attacked. In the article a woman was charged erroneously $8+ in interest and she was fighting legal battles to keep her home.


YOU are just renting your home from the government. Get late on a tax bill, and they put a lien which is sold to the highest bidder, who in turn will charge you thousands of dollars in lawyer fees, and push you out so they can make a profit on a quick sale. And the government will be on THEIR side, not yours, with armed thugs, throwing you out.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/sf/investigative/2013/09/08/left-with-nothing/


On the day Bennie Coleman lost his house, the day armed U.S. marshals came to his door and ordered him off the property, he slumped in a folding chair across the street and watched the vestiges of his 76 years hauled to the curb.

Movers carted out his easy chair, his clothes, his television. Next came the things that were closest to his heart: his Marine Corps medals and photographs of his dead wife, Martha. The duplex in Northeast Washington that Coleman bought with cash two decades earlier was emptied and shuttered. By sundown, he had nowhere to go.

All because he didn’t pay a $134 property tax bill.


(read the rest on the link, it's a much longer article).

[thoughtomator]

And incredibly, nobody thought it was worth $134 out of their own pocket to stop it from happening.

[aGameOfThrones]

Officials at the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue said that without tax sales, property owners wouldn’t feel compelled to pay their bills.

“The tax sale is the last resort. It’s also the first resort — it’s the only way in the statute to collect debt,” said deputy chief financial officer Stephen Cordi.

Collect debt? Nah. Just plain theft.


But the District, a hotbed for the tax lien industry, has done little to shield its most vulnerable homeowners from unscrupulous operators.

Foreclosures have upended families in some of the city’s most distressed neighborhoods. Houses were taken from a housekeeper, a department store clerk, a seamstress and even the estates of dead people. The hardest hit: elderly homeowners, who were often sick or dying when tax lien purchasers seized their houses.

One 65-year-old flower shop owner lost his Northwest Washington home of 40 years after a company from Florida paid his back taxes — $1,025 — and then took the house through foreclosure while he was in hospice, dying of cancer. A 95-year-old church choir leader lost her family home to a Maryland investor over a tax debt of $44.79 while she was struggling with Alzheimer’s in a nursing home.

Government makes theft easy.

[Mani]

And incredibly, nobody thought it was worth $134 out of their own pocket to stop it from happening.

It seems they are mainly preying on elder people that don't even realize what's happening until the lien is already sold to some company which pays the $134 bill, and begins charging enormous fees. Families aren't even aware of what's happening to their elderly parents until bills are out of control, by then it's already too late, the $134 bill is long gone.

In the case of the Bennie he has dementia doesn't really know what's going on, also it didn't say he had any family, so maybe there was no one to help him.

[Occam's Banana]

Lucille started a thread on this story a couple of days ago: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?427103-Tax-Liens-Left-with-nothing-over-a-134-property-tax-bill


And incredibly, nobody thought it was worth $134 out of their own pocket to stop it from happening.

It seems they are mainly preying on elder people that don't even realize what's happening until the lien is already sold to some company which pays the $134 bill, and begins charging enormous fees. Families aren't even aware of what's happening to their elderly parents until bills are out of control, by then it's already too late, the $134 bill is long gone.

In the case of the Bennie he has dementia doesn't really know what's going on, also it didn't say he had any family, so maybe there was no one to help him.

That is EXACTLY the kind of thing that is going on. It's goddam state-sanctioned thievery, is what it is ...




Of the nearly 200 homeowners who lost their properties in recent years, one in three had liens of less than $1,000.
More than half of the foreclosures were in the city’s two poorest wards, 7 and 8, where dozens of owners were forced to leave their homes just months before purchasers sold them. One foreclosed on a brick house near the Maryland border with a $287 lien and sold it less than eight weeks later for $129,000.
More than 40 houses were taken by companies whose representatives were caught breaking laws in other states to win liens.
Instead of stepping in, the D.C. tax office created more problems by selling nearly 1,900 liens by mistake in the past six years — even after owners paid their taxes — forcing unsuspecting families into legal battles that have lasted for years. One 64-year-old woman spent two years fighting to save her home in Northwest after the tax office erroneously charged her $8.61 in interest.

[Anti Federalist]

District of Criminals.

If there was any justice in this world anymore, the suits responsible, the mindless 'crats "just doing their job", would swing from lampposts.

But alas, justice took the last train to the coast, and is nowhere to be found.

[shane77m]

Take out of the clip what you will.


http://youtu.be/twuiF2Ft8bk

[Schifference]

There were many comments on the thread regarding the employer that overpaid $99,000. Many people say he is a thief. If he is a thief for accepting money that was given to him in error what are these people that knowingly purchase a house for pennies and throw the lifelong owner out on the street? Most people claim to have christian values I don't. But I can tell you if I purchased a home at a tax lien sale and found out that I was evicting someone that hadn't paid $134, I would forfeit my money and help the person out. Both the government and the buyers are ruthless bastards.

[jtap]

This disgusts me to no end.

[aGameOfThrones]

There were many comments on the thread regarding the employer that overpaid $99,000. Many people say he is a thief. If he is a thief for accepting money that was given to him in error what are these people that knowingly purchase a house for pennies and throw the lifelong owner out on the street? Most people claim to have christian values I don't. But I can tell you if I purchased a home at a tax lien sale and found out that I was evicting someone that hadn't paid $134, I would forfeit my money and help the person out. Both the government and the buyers are ruthless bastards.


This thread won't have as many comments as that one.

[jbauer]

Heck haven't you guys/gals seen the infomercials on about tax sales? There are whole curriculums being sold to TEACH people how to game the system and get a house for pennies on the dollar.

Maybe Paul Harvey wasn't to far off: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwahotPj3XU

[asurfaholic]

USA! USA! USA!!