In 1998, a Baltimore property was sold at a tax lien auction. However, the company that purchased the property never took legal possession of the home and the city has sold the property another three times in the past decade[1]. Since none of the buyers have ever taken legal possession of the home in court, the owner of the property, Reginald Lee (now 61 years old), is fighting for his home. Lee believes that since he has been paying “rent” to the various LLCs that have purchased the tax lien in the past that the home still belongs to his family. “I paid enough rent to people who didn’t own it to pay these taxes, so as far as I’m concerned [the case] should be closed,” he has said. However, Baltimore plans to sell the property again at a coming tax sale, and despite the fact that Lee’s deceased mother’s name is still on the deed, the city plans to make the sale.

Lee believes that the process is simply an attempt to “gentrify” the neighborhood – which has fallen into disrepair and houses a number of drug dealers – and remove the current residents. However, no one has paid taxes on the property, including Lee and his brother, who were left the property when their mother died, in years. Lee believes the rent he paid while living in the house should cover the bill, but the city, who offered him a right to redemption, wants to $11,000 tab paid. He believes that the city “waived the right to collect those taxes” when the property was allowed to remain in legal limbo after the purchasers of the tax lien failed, time and again, to foreclose.

While this “fight” seems to me to be a bit one-sided – after all, if the taxes are not paid then it would be unusual, to say the least, for the city to accept 18 months of rental receipts from 1999 to 2001 instead – the fact that the property has been allowed to simply stagnate for 12 years is ridiculous. Should the city just let Lee keep the house or re-sell the lien and hope for the best?

Thank you for reading! Your comments and questions are welcomed below.

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[1] http://investigativevoice.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=6405:the-longest-forclosure-baltimore-resident-fights-for-twelve-years-to-keep-his-home

In Winooski, Vermont, veterans who are members of the Regular Veterans Association will continue to pay to support their local school system after a ballot measure that would have enabled them to exempt this portion of their property taxes was defeated on Tuesday [1]. While at first this may seem perfectly reasonable, it is, at the least, unusual, since members of Veterans of Foreign Wars and the American Legion are exempt from these same statutes. However, when taxpayers learned they would be picking up responsibility for an additional $6,575 in school property taxes, they voted the measure down. In response, the Regular Veterans are “weighing their options” and hoping to avoid paying an approximately $5,100 property tax bill instead.
Do you think that the Regular Veterans should have to pay property taxes and school taxes?

Thank you for reading! Your comments and questions are welcomed below.

[1]http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20101104/NEWS02/11040312/Winooski-rejects-property-tax-relief-for-veterans-group