Conquer Club

Way back last century wealthy people built a very exclusive community in SanFransisco.

Now the street and common areas have been purchased at public action for unresolved tax debt.

$90,000.00 rather cheap investment.

Hmm, it sounds like it won't stick. The City never properly notified the homeowner's association, though taxpayers will probably be out of pocket to untangle the legal mess.

Semi-fun fact: Senator Dianne Feinstein and family lived in Presidio Terrace until recently.

What does purchased for unresolved tax debt mean?

mrswdk wrote:What does purchased for unresolved tax debt mean?

Wha..? Does the swdk not know because it was raised in communist China.. or is it just generally stupid?

mrswdk wrote:What does purchased for unresolved tax debt mean?

In the US if one doesn't pay the required taxes, the State, Town, County or even Federal government can seize and auction off the asset in order to recoup the back taxes. The new owner would then be responsible for paying the taxes going forward.

In this case the back taxes were about $1,000 or so, and the property (the Street itself and the sidewalks basically) were auctioned for $90K. Not bad for the city of San Fran. The actual tax sale happened two years ago. The people of the wealthy neighborhood hadn't paid taxes on their private road for decades. The tax bill for that private road was $14 a year (har!) and they never paid them. It looks like a comedy of errors and fuckups that led to them not paying these taxes, but whatever.
The new owners finally approached the homeowners association of the neighborhood and offered to sell the street back to them, for a lot more than $90K I'm betting. The residents have filed suit to try and reverse the tax sale which happened two years ago BTW. I don't know much about tax law, so I have no idea how that'll go.

There are over a 100 private roads in the city of San Fran, each and every one of them has to have taxes paid on them by the owners. And they all do, except this particular neighborhood. The people who bought the street did pretty well, their whole intention I'm betting is that they are hoping to sell the street back to the neighborhood for a significant profit, but barring that they can turn the damn road into a toll road. Make the residents pay a fee each and every time they leave their house to drive or hell, even walk on the sidewalk.



But yeah, in the US if you don't pay your personal property taxes your personal property gets auctioned off to pay the tax debt. That's what "purchased for unresolved tax debt" means.

Looking into it a little more, according to the suit filed by the Homeowner association of the neighborhood, they claim they hadn't received a tax bill for the street since 1980. In all this time they didn't bother to inquire why they hadn't received a tax bill. That's pretty negligent IMO of the attorneys or whoever is in charge of making sure the taxes were paid. They can't claim ignorance that they didn't know they are supposed to pay taxes on the private road, everyone who owns a private road in San Fran has to pay taxes and the neighborhood had paid taxes on the road pre 1980.

Somebody fucked up. The city probably isn't blameless but the neighborhood also owns a fair share of accountability in this as well. I think they'll be screwed in their suit against the sale. "Screwed" as in they ain't got a case. The new owners are in a much better position, legally speaking, I think. I guess we'll see. I think in a few months or whatever the neighborhood will quietly purchase back the property for an undisclosed amount and will be damn sure to pay their taxes on the property going forward.

This is hilarious.

They may not get that much. What they purchased is a street that still entails public access even if privately owned. I suspect many potential profit schemes such as charging a toll or excessive maintenance fees would not be legal.

Oh okay. I wasn't clear from the OP that the street etc. had been in private ownership. Other than some parts of London I've almost never heard of privately owned roads, pavements etc in the UK so it's not context that I would assume.

Agreed, privately owned roads seem pretty unusual.

Best comment I read was someone talking about how there are nothing but villains in this story. The homeowner associations trying to dodge their tax bill. The city not notifying them of the sale. The reactor couple attempting to make money off the rich people...

I had forgot about this fairly hilarious and layered story. I guess the sale was over turned. Pretty uneventful end to what appeared to be brewing up to be a potentially interesting lawyer off.

https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article ... 389377.php