Excess Equity Watch

The Pung family of Michigan sought to prove that fair market value of a property is the true measure of just compensation in a tax foreclosure sale in their case against Isabella County. The Supreme Court disagreed on multiple points, but the procedural battle isn’t over yet. The Legal Description talked to a senior attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation and the executive director of the National Tax Lien Association about what happens next.

One Iowa homeowner’s fight before the state’s Supreme Court to keep his home despite a $2,000+ tax debt marks another in a long series of cases predicated on the outcome of Tyler v. Hennepin County.

A group of Ohio homeowners protesting Cuyahoga County’s foreclosure and tax sale practices look to take their class action suit to the state’s Supreme Court following defeats in trial and appeals courts.

The Legal Description traveled to D.C. and sat in on oral arguments in front of the U.S. Supreme Court for Pung v Isabella County, a case that could have significant implications for the entire tax lien foreclosure process. Afterwards, we caught up with one of the attorneys who was in the court representing the Pung family for her takeaways from the Justices’ line of questioning.

As Pung v. Isabella County goes before the Supreme Court, a National Tax Lien Association webinar recently broke down the details of the case and the case’s potential implications for the entire tax lien foreclosure process.

In an appeal of an Arkansas state court decision, two brothers aim to argue before the highest court in the land that their rights to due process and just compensation were violated when the state seized their property for tax delinquency.

In what is shaping up to be another landmark case in the field of excess equity foreclosures, Pung v. Isabella County will go before the Supreme Court later this year. While Tyler v. Hennepin County asked whether excess equity belongs to the property owner when the government takes a property, Pung asks how much that property owner is owed.

In a lawsuit between the Edmonson Community Organization and the city of Baltimore, a U.S. District Court has determined under the Tyler v. Hennepin County precedent that the case can proceed.

When a Michigan home was auctioned for significantly less than its valuation and later re-sold for the assessed value, lower courts ruled that the former owner was entitled to the surplus proceeds. The U.S. Supreme Court will determine if a fair foreclosure took place.

California is the latest state to end the practice of home equity theft at the institutional level with the enactment of AB 418, which Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law on Oct. 1. The bill forbids local governments from keeping or transferring homes without providing compensation to the former owner and ensures that any foreclosure generates a sale, with any surplus funds from a sale returning to the homeowner.