PRESS RELEASE
Thursday, September 28, 2023
Contact: Justin Hurst, City Council
According to a study published by the Pacific Legal Foundation that analyzed tax foreclosed properties in Massachusetts between January 1, 2014 and December 31, 2021, Mayor Domenic Sarno and his administration stole an average of 119,000 dollars in home equity from 129 homeowners in the city of Springfield due to non-payment of taxes.
In Springfield, if a property owner failed to pay or underpaid his property taxes, the city would eventually take the entire property, along with the owner’s equity in it, which in most cases was worth much more than the tax debt owed. Unlike with other types of foreclosures, the property owner was left with nothing—regardless of the size of the debt owed to the city or the value of the property.
While other cities in the Commonwealth engaged in this practice, the data makes clear that Springfield was the most egregious violator of them all. Victims in Springfield who lost their property due to tax title foreclosure had the equity in their homes taken at almost 3 times the rate of Boston and 6 times the rate of Worcester. Mayor Sarno’s administration stole 15 million dollars in total equity from homeowners during this 7 year study, which was more than Boston who took 12.1 million dollars and 3 times more than Worcester who stole 4.6 million dollars from homeowners.
On May 23, 2023, the United States Supreme Judicial Court reached a unanimous decision in Tyler v. Hennepin County, 143 S. Ct. 1369, 1376 (2023), unambiguously declaring that, while local governments are within their right to sell a taxpayer’s home “to recover the unpaid property taxes,” local governments “could not use the toehold of the tax debt to confiscate more property than was due.” Id. at 1376, 1380 (“The taxpayer must render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, but no more.”).
What’s most concerning in light of the recent Supreme Court decision that deemed Springfield’s practice of taking more equity from homeowners than the debt that was owed unconstitutional, is that the city has not made any effort to make the 129 people whose equity it took whole again.
The administration’s inaction will Inevitably result in litigation and open the city up to much more liability than the 15 million dollars that they stole in the first place, especially once attorney’s fees are factored in. The recent case filed in United States District Court (Woodbridge v. City of Greenfield) against the City of Greenfield by an aggrieved homeowner foreshadows what Springfield should anticipate if it fails to act with a sense of urgency.
Either way, the taxpayers will be forced to bear the burden of an administration who spent over seven years prospering off of the pain of homeowners facing some of the most difficult times in their lives. The only question that remains is how much will the taxpayers ultimately have to pay.
