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The tax sale extracts wealth from low-income people and the government lets it happen.
The tax sale extracts wealth from low-income people and the government lets it happen.
The tax sale is the way that the government enforces property taxes. If you don’t pay your property taxes, then the government sells your debt to a debt buyer who then gets to charge egregious levels of interest and fees.
At this point, you have to pay whatever they charge or you lose your house and get a fraction of the equity that is rightfully yours. So, most people end up paying the extortion.
The tax sale is a leech on our society, draining resources from our lowest-income residents for the profit of faceless corporations and their lawyers.
The government uses the tax sale to harm its most vulnerable residents simply because it's the most convenient thing to do.
This is a graph of a hypothetical $1,000 property taxes for an owner-occupied property. This does not include the new property taxes that come out July 1, 2025.
Baltimore residents have faced losing homes over a water bill, a disputed lawn-mowing charge, and even government paperwork mistakes. A system intended to collect debts can instead strip families of homes and generational wealth over relatively minor obligations.
Even when the home is not ultimately lost, it can still extract wealth from low-income people. As shown in the chart, once the debt is sold in the tax sale, a bill of $1,000 will balloon to a staggering $4,000 from interest and fees, growing almost 7 times faster than a credit card.
And when the home is lost, the homeowner gets a fraction of what they are owed. One of my clients was given just $22,000 for her home. The debt buyer then turned around and sold it for $40,000.
Each and every home that changed hands due to the tax sale from 2016 to 2023 was located in a majority-African-American neighborhood.
Untold millions of dollars are siphoned from the lowest-income residents in West Baltimore each year. And it’s been going on for decades now.
While Steven's opponent has done essentially nothing to stop the tax sale in the 12 years he's been in office, stopping this injustice is Steven's highest priority once elected.
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