9 ms·
Man Loses Home After Failing to Pay $8.41 in Property Taxes
- ryuukk_ 7y agoamerican's dream
- OnlineGladiator 7y agoI just wonder how many unfair (and in this case, quite frankly bullshit) collisions there are codified in law that we rarely encounter. I don't believe the laws are perfect, or that they even can be perfect (especially since you're often catering to different groups with conflicting interests, and oftentimes more than just two). But as our populations grow, our bureaucracies slow, and more and more problems like this will manifest. I fear it's going to become more like trying to argue your case against Google for why your YouTube video was taken down without explanation - tough shit, good luck. I have an unfounded fear that overpopulation is humanity's greatest threat, and I think we're way past capacity.
- pjmorris 7y ago> I fear it's going to become more like trying to argue your case against Google for why your YouTube video was taken down without explanation I think that's a perfect analogy. EULAs and other corporate policies are likely just as full of loopholes as government regulations and source code (they're all written by people.)
- admax88q 7y agoDifference is that EULAs are written by the corporation's they protect, whereas laws are written by the corporation's whom they contain loopholes for.
- eru 7y agoAre you talking about global overpopulation, or overpopulation in particular countries or cities? Globally, we have more than enough to eat. And apart from the US exporting it's legal system everywhere (see https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everything-everywhere-is-securities-fraud https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-06-26/everyt...), there's not too many spillover effects in terms of laws from one place to another. When looking at different locales, generally denser places are more desirable. Hence their land rents and prices are higher. After taking higher rents into account, it's a mostly a wash and down to personal preferences---but that just tells you that the prices are mostly in line with reality. Compare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economies_of_agglomeration About laws: that's one of the reasons we have human judges. As for perfection: for most purposes laws first and foremost have to be predictable in their effect. (Which this one here apparently was not in practice in this case.) One of the densest countries on earth, Singapore, has one of the most efficient legal systems, especially in that regard.
- Mirioron 7y agoMaybe he's talking about density in relation to administrative areas? If you have a small administrative area then it's more likely that an individual's complaints will be heard. Eg a problem a person has in Iceland is more likely to be rectified than if the person were from the France.
- eru 7y agoPerhaps? But that has not much to do with overpopulation as commonly understood. I'm all in favour of subsidarity, too. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity)
- Mirioron 7y agoIt's usually not considered when talking about overpopulation, but this has basically already happened. The US population has quadrupled in the last 100 years. The populations of most countries have significantly increased, but the size of the administration that actually creates laws and tries to solve problems for the people has not increased much.
- eru 7y agoPeople mostly solve their own problems. The number of laws and regulations seem to have increased quite a lot. I can dig up some statistics, if necessary. But just remember the reams of pages from the Patriot Act etc. The number of civil servants (and other people employed by the government) seems to have increased a lot, too. (GDP increased a lot, and the size of government increased even faster.) The number of people in your House of Representatives was basically flat. That's true. Though they only vote on the legislation, the actual law writing is outsourced. (Similar to how you still have only one president, but the executive has grown nonetheless.) Not sure about the number of judges. Would be interesting to dig up some statistics about the number of judges per capita over time.
- ethanbond 7y agoPerhaps not coincidentally, almost all of the increased land rent that comes with increased density is captured by the Singaporean state, since it is the ultimate landowner ("privately owned" land is actually leased from the state on a 99 year basis). This means that as an area becomes more desirable, more people move there, land rent goes up, and the state earns more and more capital to build/maintain infrastructure and bureaucracy that is proportional to its population. Contrast with the Bay Area (only used as an exemplar of basically all of America/the western world), which is full of extraordinarily wealthy people paying enormous rents to live under a dysfunctional government with a budgetary shortfall of $6.3B. It appears that high Singaporean rents go back into paying for a society worth living in, while high San Franciscan rents go into the pockets of a handful of landlords (who of course contributed nothing to San Francisco's explosion of productivity over the last few decades).
- knolax 7y agoIf it makes you feel any better, America is the third largest country yet its governance is undoubtedly one of the more functional ones. The inverse link between the efficiency of bureaucracy and its scale might not be as clear.
- BubRoss 7y agoThis has nothing to do with overpopulation, I'm not sure where you are getting that bizarre connection. If you read the article you can see that it is predatory foreclosure and tax policies that give too much room for the county treasurer to do whatever they want.
- im3w1l 7y agoIt's not about overpopulation as much as high population. The more people to be managed, the higher the abstraction level. And the higher abstraction level, the more against-common-sense things happen that can't be sorted out.
- nervousvarun 7y agoWith human judges why do you say these can't be sorted out? It seems this is how the legal system sorta fundamentally works (in America). Laws are challenged in court and struck down all the time no?
- coding123 7y agoMaybe, but it sucks that the guy that lost his home has gone through 3 courts already - and there is no law on his side. Remember too that courts can't strike down laws unless they violate other presumably more powerful laws. Courts would rather say that the fix is with the lawmakers. All that being said, I'm pretty sure if this was 1890 they would have just given back the guys house.
- eru 7y agoSounds like the proper reaction is to keep responsibility down at the lowest level that can handle it. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subsidiarity) And, if necessary, break up political units (like counties and states, or even countries) into smaller pieces?
- lazyasciiart 7y ago
- calhoun137 7y agoI dont think the law can be modeled as a logically consistent set of rules, because there are so many laws that its always possible to apply correct deductive arguments to arrive at different "correct" conclusions which contradict each other. A much better model is to view the legal system as a tool used by the rich and powerful to exert their domination over the oppressed classes. This has historically always been what the law was for, going back all the way to ancient Rome. This is also what makes the concept of a "rule of law, not of man" such a revolutionary concept.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoYou were right until the second paragraph. Law is a set of easy to apply rules that let us enforce some semblance of our moral/ethical code cheaply and therefore do it at scale. The laws of any given society mostly match its morals. Of course some powerful people and entities get laws that cater to their pet issues but that's the exception, not the norm.
- calhoun137 7y agoI question how "easy to apply" the law is. It's necessary to have a set of facts before deciding "what the law says", however one of the (many) reasons it's so difficult to apply the law in practice is that establishing "the facts" for real world situations is hotly contested by lawyers for each side.
- artificialLimbs 7y agoPopulation is expected to level off around 9 billion. The more educated women are, the less children they tend to have. We are approaching having a birth rate that doesn't necessarily replace the existing population.
- taxidump 7y ago>The more educated women are, the less children they tend to have. I think this is due to women having to enter the work force and repay student loans vs. educated women choosing to not reproduce because of education.
- jki275 7y agoThat doesn’t make much sense. Educated women have choices that women in subsistence farming cultures who need to have ten kids to keep the farm going don’t have.
- mr_woozy 7y agobut it's not overpopulation what you've just describe but over-computation. Too many variables in too many combinations all of which cascade fail hard. We aren't keeping up with the feedback loop well enough of dysfunctional regulation loops.
- jotm 7y agoWhat the f Michigan... I'm assuming it's different in other states? Usually yeah the government forces you to sell your property and pay the debt, but any extra from the sale is the property owner's... Which makes way more sense. How can you even call this ownership if your house is sold and you get nothing if you don't pay your property tax...
- vezycash 7y agoRobbery - plain and simple. Reminds me of when traffic lights were illegally manipulated to create more traffic offenders to raise funds.
- monster_group 7y agoIn US, whether you really own your house is debatable. The appraisal district (the entity taxing your property), the home owner's association and the mortgaging bank can legally take possession of your house if you don't pay your dues.
- anfilt 7y agoThe states never really have given people allodial titles/deeds to land. Nevada did something close to allodial title for a bit, but stopped in 2005 or so from my understanding.
- UncleEntity 7y agoI seriously doubt the HOA can seize your home over $8.41 in back dues and pocket the difference after they sell it. The mortgaging bank OTOH is the actual owner of the property up until you pay the full contractual price and they sign over the deed.
- tantalor 7y agoNot really; your equity is yours. The lien holder is only owed what they are owed.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
- 5555624 7y agoFrom a month ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21464572 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21464572
- s1artibartfast 7y agoThanks. Its shocking how many posters in that thread thought it was entirely appropriate for the state to retain the profits.
- jcims 7y agoThis is how you get killdozer.
- toomuchtodo 7y agoAlso mentioned in the original thread! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465657 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21465657
- Proven 7y agoYou cannot own a home if you must pay property tax. You merely lease it from the government.
- GlTChWhISKY 7y agoThis is just as bad as police seizures
- duelingjello 7y agoCivil Asset Forfeiture (CAF) obviously violates the 4th, 6th and 14th amendments to any reasonable person, but because the police profit from it, lawyering cognitive dissonance continues to legitimize it as legal. What it means is that innocent people carrying large sums of cash or having expensive property will continue to have it taken from them unless they are rich and have aggressive lawyers. CAF requires proving a negative (an impossibility), as well as assuming guilt, deprivation of property immediately and proving innocence later, which seems mutually exclusive with fundamental tenants of the US justice system: "innocent until proven guilty" and "due-process." It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it. - Upton Sinclair
- exabrial 7y agoProperty taxes are a special form of BS: here's a fine for using the money you earned and we didn't seize from you in other taxes for merely parsing an asset.
- chrisseaton 7y agoProperty taxes aren’t fines or punishment - they’re to pay for the civilisation around your property which costs money to run.
- anfilt 7y agoWhether or not it's BS. The reason why is more simple. The states never really have given people allodial titles to land. I think only Nevada has and it was still limited.
- exabrial 7y agoDoes one have an option to consent? If there is no consent, it's one of punishment, fines, or theft.
- gshdg 7y agoYou consent by buying / not selling your property. Besides which, where do you think your “rights” to “own” property come from?
- anon84759392 7y agoIt's my natural right to own property, with the caveat that such ownership is defined by my ability to defend it by whatever means necessary: socially, physically, logically, legally, etc. Or at least that's what my country's founders might have believed and tried to establish. We might argue they're still correct in some sense even in spite of a government or society that insists otherwise.
- perl4ever 7y ago
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- anfilt 7y agoIf only states gave out allodial titles/deeds.
- FpUser 7y agoCases like this make my blood boil. It is really depressing when state can commit great injustice towards constituents without any redress and there is no special power that can fix plain and obvious wrongs right in place (well presidents pardoning their cronys are the exception).
- duelingjello 7y agoSpeaking of property taxes: ‘Dear God, help us all’: Utah taxpayers stung after home valued at [$987 Megabucks] in ‘horrific’ typo https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/dear-god-help-us-all-utah-taxpayers-stung-after-home-valued-at-14-billion-in-horrific-typo/news-story/61d618ab32e0d24ff537b5649b4d2993 https://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/dear-g...
- HarryHirsch 7y agoHere is the correct headline: "Slumlord returns investment property to bank using the simple trick of not paying property tax"
- msie 7y agoI thought there was more to this story. I read about it before. It’s not just how the guy miscalculated interest?
- rexgallorum2 7y agoOne of the more important yet most overlooked and misunderstood features of American government and governance is the fact that a vast amount of power resides at the very bottom, and local officials often have discretionary powers that would be vested in higher level officials in other countries. This is a good thing in many respects, but the other side of the coin is that you have totally incompetent yokels wielding the power of petty kings. The case in question is an absolute disgrace and an excellent example of the failings of the American system of government in its present state of (dys)function. I would argue that it should be much, much harder to evict people for any reason, and that seizing private property for trivial reasons should be near impossible. Many here would agree, but in this specific case it is purely a local matter. Sub/exurban Detroit cannot be compared to Singapore. And the problem has little to do with global population or overpopulation, but it is curiously linked to population density. Jürgen Habermas and others have written extensively about the phenomenon of 'Verrechtlichung' or 'juridification', i.e. the process by which an ever increasing amount of human interaction and social and economic life is subjected to legal regulation and codification, corresponding roughly to increases in population density that came with urbanisation, industrialisation, and the advent of urban modernity from the late 19th century on. But that is really not directly related to the given issue exept in a rather abstract way.
- bb88 7y agoSo what can Americans do differently? 1. Coalesce power to the top assuming that those people are more intelligent and deserving of control? No. That's how authoritarianism starts. 2. Remove the power to seize private property? No. Because that's seen as an effective deterrent against crime. You can't have drug dealers putting their cash into untouchable multi million dollar homes. 3. More checks and balances on local governments to not abuse their power? Yes. This is how it's always been done, and will continue to be done in the future. There's the state and federal court systems which can provide relief. There's also state and federal legislators. There's also the free press which can illuminate these issues. Lastly there's elections. If you don't like the way someone has run government, you can vote them out.
- rexgallorum2 7y ago
- ausjke 7y agoIt shows me a system that lacks flexibility, it's scary.
- klipt 7y agoMeanwhile in San Francisco, some rich assholes that failed to pay property tax for decades got the tax sale of their street reversed years after it happened: https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/11/28/rich-san-francisco-homeowners-get-sold-off-street-back/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/11/28/rich-san-francisco-ho... Different rules for the rich as always.
- kqr2 7y agoFrom the article, they actually defaulted on it twice and got it back both times: It marks the second time the association has defaulted, but it won back the street in 1985 after paying up.
- joshuaheard 7y agoI don't know how it works in Detroit, but in Texas where I am a lawyer, it is very hard to lose your home to property tax foreclosure. First, the property taxes are on the web, so the homeowner can go anytime and see how much they owe, and in some cases can pay online. Then, if you are delinquent, you are sent many notices that the homeowner must ignore. Then, even after the property sells at auction, the homeowner can redeem the property for the unpaid taxes for up to a year, again after receiving many notices.
- tmm84 7y agoThe business of Detroit gaining ownership of houses due to unpaid taxes is huge. There are some documentaries on this but the short of it is the main seller of properties in Detroit is the city itself due to how easily it gains control over properties through taxation. The same kind of thing has been happening in Chicago with car impounding that leads to auctioning off cars.
- newnewpdro 7y agoWhile this is obviously unjust, I'm baffled by why someone paying an already delinquent property tax bill with clear risks of foreclosure wouldn't err on the side of overpaying. When you overpay your property taxes, they send you a check for the balance. I accidentally overpaid mine this year by $10, the county mailed back a check in that amount with no further information or interaction required. I hadn't even realized the error until receiving it unannounced.
- masonic 7y agoFor those homeowners in SV (at minimum), remember that your first installment of your 2019-20 is delinquent after Tuesday, so pay (or postmark) by then.