Foreclosures in Detroit - $700 million in uncollected taxes

[Cincinnati_Kid]

There are plenty of people in Detroit who are still in their homes who haven't paid any property taxes in years. If this were to happen in the suburbs, they'd be put out of their house in record time. Why is this?

[Chicago48]

There are plenty of people in Detroit who are still in their homes who haven't paid any property taxes in years. If this were to happen in the suburbs, they'd be put out of their house in record time. Why is this?

There's no answer. Honestly there is no answer. If you give the homeowners amnesty, and let them stay in the home, they start anew not paying taxes. If the man is not employed now, does he have any prospects of a job in the near future. Probably not. So he stays in the house. Water cut off. Taxes unpaid. Lights turned. It's no way to live.

A lot of those houses need massive work done. They are fixer uppers! I know people and have relatives who live in those type houses. Many of those houses are 100 years old.

There's no answer. Maybe the city needs to change the tax structure from property-tax dependent to taxes on utility & cell phone dependent. This is what I mean -- if you can't get property taxes, don't charge property taxes. Charge taxes on other things -- food, cell phones, services. The city will have to depend on those type of taxes.

[mwilbert]

There are plenty of people in Detroit who are still in their homes who haven't paid any property taxes in years. If this were to happen in the suburbs, they'd be put out of their house in record time. Why is this?

There's no answer. Honestly there is no answer.

There may or may not be an answer to the problem, but there is an answer to the question.

The answer to the question is that in most places, first of all a far smaller number of properties are tax delinquent, so it is easier for the taxing jurisdiction to deal with, second that if another city does go through the tax foreclosure process, it is more likely that they will be able to dispose of the property in a timely and profitable way, and third, Detroit has to worry more than most places about creating a vacant property that is likely to be vandalized shortly thereafter.

So both the motivation and the ability of the city to deal with these tax delinquencies is less than average.