The Roanoke Slant

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Roanoke Times, 7-10-12, Pg 3: Housing: Some lose homes over as little as $400.
Tax debts can cause homes to be sold for a fraction of their value and then resold by investors. Local governments can seize and sell a home if the owner falls behind on property taxes and fees.
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This is a very good and informative article except for the negative light cast upon those who buy tax-sale properties. It’s not the buyers who are the bad guys; it’s the local governments that are acting far more onerous than mortgage companies in foreclosing on homeowners.
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Unlike other debt payments a homeowner makes, a delinquent tax payment is not reflected on the next tax bill or any following tax bills. Therefore, if the past due notice however delivered is not received by the homeowner; the homeowner may not know their home is in the foreclosure and tax sale process until the new owner shows up!
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This is a significant exposure for senior citizens who may be having difficulty processing their financial affairs and also remote owners of second homes or seasonal properties.
If any person or business operated this way the “fairness police” would go postal! Apparently this is not being addressed because it’s your government at work again.
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Clearly the government should have the requirement to “ensure notification” of back-taxes due and to reflect any back-taxes due on future bills as is done by every other institution.
The additional notification to the homeowner that their home is entering the tax-sale process should be handled by a process-server with the requirement that the homeowner be personally contacted and acknowledge the notification. We do this for notification of jury duty don’t we!
Advertising the tax-sale of a home in the local newspapers is clearly not sufficient notice for a government confiscation of this magnitude and importance.
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A significant contributor to this issue is the major escalation of property taxes due to constant government reassessment and runaway spending.  A homeowner winds up paying taxes on a value that he hasn't realized!  The current housing recession has clearly shown that homeowners have been paying thousands of dollars of taxes on inflated and fake govrnment set values.  Imagine the "fairness police" reaction if this were done by some business to a homeowner!
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