On April 26, the United States Supreme Court will begin opening arguments in the case of a 94-year-old woman from Minnesota who had the title to her condominium “taken” by the county government for back taxes. She lost all the equity she had built up in her home.
One of the “friend” briefs filed was from University of Massachusetts law professor Ralph Clifford, who estimates that tax foreclosures in 2018 in Massachusetts confiscated $56 million from private homeowners. “State law is not free to redefine property rights as it chooses,” Professor Clifford argues, “to enable the state to take your property without due process.”
Any city or town in the commonwealth that takes more from property owners than what they owe, should be required to pay back the excess taken as just compensation. There are other ways to collect taxes than resorting to theft.
Mitch Speight
Joan Marie Jackson
Greenfield