The Alex Jones Infowars website reports (links added by me):
The city council in Brooksville, Florida voted this week to advance a proposal granting city officials the authority to place liens and foreclose on the homes of motorists accused of failing to pay a single $5 parking ticket. Non-homeowners face having their vehicles seized if accused of not paying three parking offenses.
According to the proposed ordinance, a vehicle owner must pay a parking fine within 72 hours if a meter maid claims his automobile was improperly parked, incurring tickets worth between $5 and $250. Failure to pay this amount results in the assessment of a fifty-percent “late fee.” After seven days, the city will place a lien on the car owner’s home for the amount of the ticket plus late fees, attorney fees and an extra $15 fine. The fees quickly turn a $5 ticket into a debt worth several hundred dollars, growing at a one-percent per month interest rate. The ordinance does not require the city to provide notice to the homeowner at any point so that after ninety days elapse, the city will foreclose. If the motorist does not own a home, it will seize his vehicle after the failure to pay three parking tickets.
Any motorist who believes a parking ticket may have been improperly issued must first pay a $250 “appeal fee” within seven days to have the case heard by a contract employee of the city. This employee will determine whether the city should keep the appeal fee, plus the cost of the ticket and late fees, or find the motorist not guilty. Council members postponed a decision on whether to reduce this appeal fee until final adoption of the measure which is expected in the first week of April.
Ordinance No. 743 (Brooksville, Florida City Council, 3/19/2007)
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aynrkey
bostonteapartygoer
Kenn Jacobine
mattdharris
Mike Seebeck
Miche
paulie
Jim Davidson
ponggod
Stuart Richards
Todd Andrew Barnett
What’s to stop the city of Brooksville from fraudulently giving parking tickets (and conveniently not leaving the ticket on the vehicle), just so they can foreclose on someone’s home? This plan is ripe for abuse. Have a political enemy, or don’t like your neighbor, and want them gone? Just get a meter maid to ticket them.
The whole thing is just another government scam. The citizens of Brooksville should vote the entire city council out of office for even coming up with this brain fart.
Screw voting. Go over their heads to the politicians real bosses. Here’s how.
Study C. Wright Mills power elite analysis of national politics, and then realize that local politics is usually a miniature example of this. The politicians are usually just gladiators in the service of a state capitalist (i.e. “mercantilist”) ruling class that profits from political favoritism of one sort or another. At the national level, it’s “defense contractors” and the banking cartel, among others. At the local level, it’s usually a network of real estate developers, well-connected lawyers and key large retailers.
When the politicians pull this kind of crap, study campaign finance reports to find out who their principal backers are — the “puppetmasters”. Then organize punitive boycotts, demonstrations and so forth targeting them.
At the very least, the bastards may have more trouble with campaign fundraising next time around.
You can do both and really fuck up their whole day.
Why worry whether the bosses or the bureaucrats are the senior partners? Attack the whole system from all sides. Sure, you still have to buy your good and services somewhere, just as some set of politicians or another will get elected, but you can still send a message (in both cases) by switching your preference and publically explaining why and, when possible, creating alternative choices.
Hmmm…to quote the t-shirt. “Rope. Lamp post. Politician. Some Assembly Required”.
Does anyone really think that voting and boycotting is doing any good? I cannot help but think that we’ve almost reached the point where the ballot box is useless, the jurors box is corrupted and broken and the soapbox is ignored. That only leaves one box.
Then again, maybe it’s just Monday.
Some clarifying points. First, real estate can only be foreclosed on when a mortgage or note secured by a deed of trust is in default. A parking ticket or any other fine is a judgment which can be a lien against real estate.
The judgment rendered in any civil action (like your dentist suing you for nonpayment of your bill) can be a lien against real estate. A creditor or the government can have a court ordered sale of real estate to satisfy any lien.
So, what this Florida town is doing is nothing new or nothing that virtually every other jurisdiction in America is not already doing. Your real estate, or other property, can be sold to pay local, state, or federal taxes or fines. Your real estate can be sold to pay private creditors also.
The Brooksville plan sounds like it probably wouldn’t comply with state law regarding judicial sales of real estate in most states, including Florida. Mortgage lenders and title insurance companies will not look favorably on these types of transactions, rendering the resale of seized properties difficult.
The most common type of judicial sale of real estate is to collect real estate taxes. Most judgment debts and income tax liens generally remain as a lien against real estate as interest ticks away. You can’t sell or refinance the real estate without paying off the debt. They generally remain a lien against real estate for 10 to 20 years and can often be renewed or extended.
The first rule for being “judgment proof” is to not own real estate or own it in trust or a business name that you can’t be easily connected with. Same with vehicles.
Tom — from someone who works(ed) with real estate & real estate taxes — the reason why IRS liens and such don’t get enforced is because by law their lien position is secondary to any outstanding liens against the property. 2nd lien on title.
Property tax sales, however, create a 1st lien on title position. That is; regardless of any other debts owed by the owner, the property tax lien is the 1st; this lien is created when it is sold to the public at auction (generally it’s the interest rate that is the auction bidding tool. Here in AZ it starts at 16% and can go down to 0%.) The lien-buyer pays the outstanding debt and a fee. The homeowner then has between 2 and 4 years (depending on the state) to redeem that note. This is commonly done by refinancing the home loan. If this is not done (as happens in between 5% & 20% of all cases) the lien-holder has the right to evict the previous tenants from the property, and establish himself as the owner of that property in full. Any other liens on title are conveyed as unsecured debt to the previous homeowner.
It’s very important to note that this scheme very likely creates the lien as 2nd position rather than 1st. So while you *CAN* loose your home over it, it ain’t likely.
Governments have a strange preoccupation with creating 2nd-position-on-title liens. Your water utility likely does it. All Water And Sewer Authority bills issued by the City of Philadelphia, for example, are by law considered liens against the property. I have never heard of a case of them being enforced. The reason for this is essentially that for a 2nd position lien to be enforced, those preceding it would have to be redeemed. The opposite, however, is not true.
And yes, Tax Lien Certificate purchasing is essentially a guaranteed way of making money. It also TAKES money to make money in that market.
IanC – You are right about why most inferior liens don’t get enforced. The reality is that they don’t have to be enforced. They have a long life and interest accrues. If you ever want to sell or refinance your real estate, then you must pay it off.
You are also correct about real estate taxes being having priority over all other liens. This is why taxes are collected by mortgage companies and paid by them – in cases where this does not happen, the noteholder may foreclose on your mortgage if real estate taxes aren’t paid. Lenders won’t take any chances on losing money because a borrower didn’t pay real estate taxes.
However, here in Virginia (and in some other states), localities are tending to use judicial sales to collect delinquent real estate taxes. This entails service of process, public notice, guardians appointed for unknown parties, creditors made parties to the action, appraisals made of the property, well advertised auctions, confirmation of sales by the court, and the payment of liens inferior to real estate taxes with any funds above the delinquent taxes and court costs.
Purchasers get clear title, not subject to any redemption, but they pay a price often close to fair market value. This process is more equitable for owners, creditors and buyers – and title insurance people (like me) like it better, too.
The deal is that any local jurisdiction can collect fees, taxes other than real estate taxes, fines (including parking tickets), etc. by suing and docketing the judgment, if the debt is not a lien against real estate by statute. The point being Brooksville is not unique, although it seems they have some pretty hefty late charges. I seriously doubt they will be “foreclosing” on many homes. It sounds like the author of the article is guilty of sensationalism and hyperbole.
It is best to avoid the arcane aspects of the priority of liens on your real estate and pay the damn parking tickets. I have avoided getting any parking tickets by using private parking decks in my city – after having my car seized more than once for outstanding tickets. We don’t have meter maids in Richmond, we have “parking nazis”.