You are barking up the wrong tree here. The home owners aren't being screwed by some technicality. All of this was triggered by some super-mega-rich people not

You are barking up the wrong tree here. The home owners aren't being screwed by some technicality. All of this was triggered by some super-mega-rich people not paying taxes for ~30 years, which after all this time amounted to a grand total of $900. After ample warning, the street was put up for auction and was bought by someone. This whole situation could've been headed off at the pass several times: by paying the owed taxes at any point or by outbidding everyone at the auction as a last resort. But they took the "do nothing" route - maybe because they thought they could get away with it? - and got punished for it. No sympathy from me. We all have obligations, and I get no shred of sympathy from my government when I fail to meet them (they slapped a €20 administrative fee on top of an unpaid €0,20 fine when they mailed the notification to me, just so you can get an idea... that 100x the cost of the fine in "administrative fees"). Why should they get anything more or less than what the average citizen gets?