The Number Of Elderly Who Are Losing Their Homes Has Increased By An Alarming Rate!

I just got finished reading an article about how the number of elderly who are losing their homes is increasing by an alarming rate. I wrote on my LaMott Blog about how I personally knew a neighbor who had lost their home because of the back property taxes that weren't paid. They had lived in their home for a number of years and had accumulated a lot of stuff. But the time came and a notice was put on their door and their house was sold.

Now in my area the property taxes run about $4,000 a year! It comes from 2 different tax bills and one of those is the school tax bill (which is the highest). Some seniors argue that since they don't have any children in the schools that they shouldn't have to pay these taxes. While the issue has been debated there nothing that has been put into law. There is a funding program where seniors can get some money to offset the cost of their property taxes but in my area that amounts to just over 10% of the tax due.

It seems that the counties are going after unpaid property taxes more strongly and I know of at least one area where the due property taxes are sold at auction to the highest bidder. The county gets their money and there is a new holder of the property tax bill that the homeowner has to pay.

By law, the city can seize homes and sell them for back taxes at a treasurer's auction. Homeowners who don't pay the debt within 90 days of the auction will lose their homes.

One person's home was put up for auction because he only owed around $600 in back property taxes.

Property Tax Bill(s) Tidbit!

Here is an interesting little thing that I found out

It seems that there is at least one county that sells the unpaid property tax bills of its residents. Whoever buys these property tax bill(s) will pay the bill but will then become the person or company that you still owe the bill to.

In other words while you won't be liable to your county you are liable to whoever owns that property tax bill note.

Personally I think that this is just horrible - instead of finding a better way to work with the persons that owe the property tax bill they are sold off to the highest bidder.

So I guess that my piece of advice here is to just be able to pay your property tax bill because you might end up with a more worse creditor than your county tax office!