Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Left with Nothing

washingtonpost.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 287 posts

Re: Left with Nothing

#211

Post by muzz »

will_brown wrote: post #54

Ironically, a lot of houses owned by banks as a result of foreclosures ("REOs") are in turn getting foreclosed for failure to pay taxes and HOA fees. Banks were/are not equipped to manage the number of properties they own as a result of foreclosures and they lack the basic infrastructure to maintain these properties not limited to paying taxes and HOA fees, but violations of certain civil statutes like failing to mai…

Yeah because banks have no experience with things called Impound or Escrow accounts...

Re: Left with Nothing

#212

Post by muzz »

tpainton wrote: post #198

I especially like how the people who made the laws are in no way to blame... Nope once again, it's the lobbyists and the evil corporations, never the people who actually made the rule that allowed it to happen...made the rule to retain power.. No they are the good guys.

What would be your solution? To not sell the liens to private investors and instead and have the government try to collect on them? I.e., is your alternative bigger government?

Re: Left with Nothing

#213

Post by djvu9 »

Not sure if you guys have noticed this "In 2006, he forgot to pay a $134 tax bill, prompting the city to place a lien on the home and add $183 in interest and penalties. His son paid the $317 bill in 2009, records show, but that wasn’t enough." His son did pay the tax later. I don't know how penalties/government fees are made and justified.

Re: Left with Nothing

#214

Post by muzz »

radicalbyte wrote: post #53

I wouldn't be against this basically being a fraud committed by someone in the local government there. Who else would have the knowledge to have found the loophole? Who else could have abused it so well?

The six companies that dominate the auctions for those liens.

"When it was over, six companies had swept the bidding, snaring two-thirds of the liens, which totaled $5 million, on properties worth more than $666 million"

Re: Left with Nothing

#216

Post by caf »

xsmasher wrote: post #201
mynameishere wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's generally been the case that the government could seize property due to failure to pay property taxes. The problem is that the government here is, bizarrely, selling the liens to "investors" rather than just collecting the taxes owed.

The government tried collecting the taxes, and the owners did not (perhaps because they could not) pay. So the government auctions off the house to make good on the debt. What else could the government do, put the homeowner in debtor's prison?

In some places they would garnish the debtors income.

Re: Left with Nothing

#217

Post by xsmasher »

muzz wrote: post #206
xsmasher wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government tried collecting the taxes, and the owners did not (perhaps because they could not) pay. So the government auctions off the house to make good on the debt. What else could the government do, put the homeowner in debtor's prison?

It auctions the lien, not the house. The new lien holder then foreclosures on the house and takes all the remaining equity.

You are correct, they buy the lien and have to foreclose later.

I'm still curious what myname would propose as an alternative collection scheme. The article mentions that Michigan stopped doing tax lien sales, so I checked up on what they do now: https://www.tax-sale.info/html/index/page/general

SPOILER: > The properties are then sold by deed at auction.

Not much of an improvement over the lien process; just a faster foreclosure.

Re: Left with Nothing

#219

Post by rayiner »

pdonis wrote: post #193
rayiner wrote: post #158

The article doesn't come out and say it, but the impetus for tax sales is that foreclosure proceedings are pretty onerous and take forever. At the same time, property taxes are the primary source of revenue for the local government and must be collected. So it doesn't seem ridiculous at face value to sell the debt to private investors and let them do the collection while being able to recoup the fees involved in fore…

I'm skeptical of the "lien holder gets the equity" claim because it doesn't work that way outside of DC or in foreclosure generally I'm not sure I understand. Foreclosure means the lien holder takes title to the property, and the current owner, the one who owes the debt that the lien holder was unable to collect, loses title. Then the lien holder, who now has title to the property, sells it for whatever the market wi…

That's not how foreclosures work. In most states, foreclosure is a judicially supervised sale in which the lien holder does not take title, but instead is entitled to part of the proceeds of the sale. Multiple lien holders may collect in case of say home equity loans, but at the end the original owner is entitled to whatever is left after satisfying the liens.

In some rare cases, with underwater mortgages, the lender may be allowed to take title.

Re: Left with Nothing

#220

Post by rdtsc »

staccatomeasure wrote: post #129
derleth wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a judge with the power to use their own judgement (instead of relying on overly-specific, exploitable laws); Yes, because a single corrupt or idiotic or assholic judge should be able to ruin lives left and right without regard for the law. > the other is to implement some counterbalance punitive fee for wrongly harassing citizens - something that decreases the profit ratio for predators and makes defending people i…

I'd rather take my chances with a judge than nearly guaranteeing failure in the current system. We already do this with small-claims court I believe and to be honest I'm not sure of the differences between that and a court that would handle a tax lien. And yes, any system you make could be gamed, but you could make one that is harder to game than the current one.

It won't help much. Judge elections and appointments will then just be the focus of lobby groups. Watch the movie Hot Coffee to see how state supreme court judge elections are manipulated by business interests to install "friendly" judges.

Why not just make a law to cap the profits. Home must be sold at fair market price and the rest must be given to the owner.

Post reply on HN