Property Rights

Billy Binion | 7.26.2024 3:48 PM

In 2021, Manistee County, Michigan, took the title on Chelsea Koetter's family home, which she shared with her two sons, in response to a small debt she owed on her 2018 property taxes. It was April Fools' Day. The "gotcha" never came.

Her situation instead only grew more absurd. Four months after seizing her home, the government auctioned it off for $106,500. Then it kept the profit.

All told, Koetter owed the government $3,863.40, which included her initial tax debt, as well as penalties, interest, and fees. She does not contest she was obligated to pay that. At issue is whether or not the county acted lawfully when it pocketed the remaining $102,636 after selling her house, in a practice known as home equity theft.

"I had one person tell me they were suicidal because they lost everything they worked for," Christina M. Martin, a senior attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation who has litigated several home equity cases and who is representing Koetter, told me last year. "It's hard enough to lose your home, but when you lose all your life savings, that's just beyond devastating. It's completely shocking. It often destroys people."

Both........

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