A homeless 66-year-old grandmother is suing a city in Massachusetts for “home equity theft” after her home was seized for a tax debt and sold, but her equity in the property wasn’t refunded to her.
The legal action takes aim at what some call “home equity theft,” which is widespread in Massachusetts, according to the Sacramento, California-based Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), a public interest law firm that’s representing the woman free of charge. PLF has stated that it’s committed to ending home equity theft across the country.
In addition to New Bedford, Boston-based real estate investment company Tallage Davis also is named as a defendant.
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Foss lives on a small fixed income and suffers from chronic lymphocytic leukemia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and neuropathy. She took care of her ailing mother for the past 10 years of her life, and when her mother died, she used the money from the sale of her mother’s house—plus her own life savings—to buy a $168,500 home in New Bedford.
Foss lived downstairs and rented out the upstairs. The new home needed repairs that she couldn’t afford and her tenant stopped paying rent. When Foss couldn’t pay her 2016 tax bill to New Bedford, the city initiated a “tax taking” and 18 months later, sold its tax lien to Tallage Davis for $9,626—the amount she owed the city. Tallage Davis took ownership of the property in September 2019.
PLF attorney Joshua Polk said he’s hoping the court will make things right.
“Obviously, the government has to have some mechanism to collect what is owed, but neither the government nor a private investor has any right to collect more than what is owed,” Polk told The Epoch Times.
“And that’s a matter of constitutional law and basic human decency. I think home equity theft is cruel and unjust. And Massachusetts law shouldn’t allow municipalities to enrich themselves or wealthy investors at the expense of those suffering from financial hardship, like Ms. Foss has been suffering here. So we hope that this lawsuit will help bring an end to the practice and get some justice for Ms. Foss.”
The Epoch Times reached out for comment to New Bedford Mayor Jon Mitchell, but didn’t receive a reply as of press time.
But William P. Cowin, a principal at Tallage Davis, provided a comment to The Epoch Times, quoting from a lengthy statement issued on March 29 by attorney Daniel C. Hill of Hill Law in Boston. Tallage Davis denies wrongdoing and says it carefully followed the law.
Hill said the title to the property was held in a real estate trust since 2015 and that the trust never paid any property taxes after acquiring the property. The case went to court, and in July 2019, Foss, the trustee of the realty trust, was “given an opportunity to redeem the property by paying off the back taxes, or hire a lawyer to challenge the tax taking. She did neither, and was defaulted. The Court entered a foreclosure judgment on September 25, 2019.”
In fall 2021, after Tallage Davis assumed ownership, it tried to help the occupants relocate.
“The occupants signed an agreement under which they agreed to vacate the premises by November 30, 2021, in exchange for a monetary settlement,“ Hill said. ”The sisters did not honor that agreement.”