CHAPTER 8 Tax Nightmares
It’s important to realize that your home could be taken from you for a measly $6.30 late fee. This is what happened in 2013 to a Beaver County, PA, resident. She fully owned the home since paying it off in 2004 with life insurance proceeds following the death of her husband. In 2009, she was six days late on her property tax bill, and unknowingly incurred a $6.30 fee for late payment. The next year, she paid her taxes in full according to her bill, but was unaware that she now owed the county $234.72, which had snowballed from the still-unknown $6.30 late fine of 2009. Beaver County tax collectors auctioned off her home for $113,000. The buyer, whose full-time occupation was to buy houses in tax auctions and sell them back to the owners at a profit, gave her the option to either buy back the home for $160,000 or to pay him rent of $2,500 per month. After a series of court appearances and more than $30,000 in legal fees, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled in her favor and the sale of her home was overturned.
Think this was just an isolated case? Think again.
In 2013, an elderly couple in Buffalo, NY, lost their home at a property foreclosure sale in October. Their daughter had owned the home for 14 years, and was very close to paying it off. It wasn’t until November that the daughter received a letter notifying her that the home had been sold for user fees—$440 in 65
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