Governments Stealing Homes
Did you know some towns in America are basically stealing people’s homes? One missed tax payment and the government takes your entire house, sells it and keeps all the money.
John Stossel said it’s hard to believe that could happen in America, but it does. It happened to Tawanda Hall, who was behind on her property taxes, on a payment plan, but short $900. What did her county government do? They took her entire $308,000 house!
Hall tried to pay off the debt but said, “They didn’t want our money, they wanted our house.” Stossel, who covered the story two years ago, was told by Hall’s lawyer Christina Martin, of the Pacific Legal Foundation, that what the government did was unconstitutional. “The government can’t take more than it’s owed,” she said.
Since then, the case was appealed all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Hall won on a 9-0 vote. Despite the victory, Stossel says the greedy government officials still steal people’s homes. Here’s his report.
