The "I Own My House" Myth

As we prepare to set out to the uplands for the much anticipated Bird Season Opening Day & embark on our slow travels and new mobile  lifestyle.
It reinforces my observation that no one in this part of the world really never "OWNS" any REAL-estate. Even if it is "paid for" from a mortgage, you never truly own it.

So, to all of those who have expressed their concern that we no longer HAVE A HOUSE, here is some food for thought.

Who Really Owns Your Home?: 

Detroit Preparing to Foreclose on 142,000 Residents By 2016

 by Joshua Krause

Have you ever considered the legitimacy of property taxes? It’s one thing for the government to take a cut from your income, but there’s something deeply offensive about the idea of property taxes. It’s the idea that you have to pay your local government, year after year for the rest of your life, for something you’ve already paid in full. It’s complete nonsense.
It calls into question whether you even own your property in the first place. After all, do you really own it if you have to keep paying for it? It seems to closely resemble the medieval system of serfdom. The peasants didn’t own the land they worked on. They had to pay a yearly fee for the right to work that land, which went towards the nobles and knights. It was protection money. So at least they had the benefit of protection from the warrior class in those societies. Can you say the same of your local police?
I digress. In reality, you don’t “own” your house or the land it sits on, even if it’s been paid in full. That’s another benefit those peasants have on us. They didn’t have to pay some bank for decades, only to have their land taken from them when they didn’t pay their “yearly fee”. They were never under the illusion that the land belonged to them.
I doubt the people of Detroit have any illusions either. They’re facing an unimaginable crises that threatens to put tens of thousands of residents on the streets. The city government is about to show us once and for all, who really owns the land.

This year in Detroit, there have been 22,000 foreclosures on properties whose owners failed to pay property taxes three years in a row. Of those, 10,000 are estimated to be occupied, meaning this year’s foreclosures are set to oust about 27,000 Detroiters from their homes.
That’s a large number in a dwindling city with fewer than 700,000 residents, but the figures are set to get even worse. In the next couple of months, Wayne County’s treasurer will be serving foreclosure notices on 110,000 more properties, 85,000 of which are in Detroit, according to its chief deputy treasurer David Szymanski. With half of those Detroit properties estimated to be occupied, this means a further 115,000 Detroiters might lose their homes next year.
In a city supposedly trying to attract residents rather than lose them, this means a potential 142,000 Detroiters—one-fifth of the city’s population—will be shown the door within the next year and a half. The city has yet to announce plans for accommodating those who get evicted.

So they’re basically going to evict the bottom fifth of the city in one fell swoop. What kind of country do we live in, where a city can look their citizens in the eye and say “Sorry, you’re not good enough for us. You don’t make enough money to live in the poorest city in America. You’re not rich enough to grace the bottom of the barrel.” They’re really prepared to throw their citizens out on the coldest and meanest streets of America, while their fiscally and morally bankrupt government spends 450 million dollars on a brand new hockey stadium.
That is just wicked.
Somehow I don’t think this is going to end well for the city. I don’t think they’re going to be able oust 142,000 of their poorest and most desperate residents. These people don’t have anything left to lose, and there aren’t enough cops to evict them at gunpoint. If this comes to a head, then the residents of Detroit should prepare themselves for the next major American riot.
Joshua Krause is a reporter, writer and researcher at The Daily Sheeple. He was born and raised in the Bay Area and is a freelance writer and author.

 

  More background from Detroit

DETROIT (WWJ/AP) – Wayne County will send people door-to-door to offer thousands of foreclosed Detroit homes for as little as $500, a move that would keep a roof overhead for occupants and possibly get properties back on the tax rolls.

More than 6,000 Detroit homes, foreclosed because taxes weren’t paid, didn’t sell at auction last fall. The county treasurer’s office doesn’t want to see them abandoned and is willing to negotiate with anyone living inside, including owners who no longer have a right to the property.

Wayne County Deputy Treasurer Eric Sabree told WWJ’s Sandra McNeil representatives from his office will make the offer on thousands of delinquent properties.

“A person must prove to us that they are bonafide residents who unfortunately, I am presuming, have been paying their rent to somebody who apparently didn’t pay their delinquent taxes,” Sabree said.
Sabree said there are a number of ways people can prove residence.

“Not only through an authorized state identification card or a driver’s license, a cable … a utility bill — anything of those sorts are reviewed and then a determination is made and a offer to those individuals,” he said.
Sabree said the residents must agree to be monitored for two years to make sure they keep up the property and the taxes on the house. He said it’s a way to stop blight.

“A vacant house is not going to help anybody,” he told The Detroit News.
Charles Brown, 62, said he’s been squatting in his home for about a year. He said he installed windows and doors and uses the fireplace for heat.  “I am still doing a lot of work,” Brown said. “It would mean a lot if I could keep it.”
A neighbor who rents, Freda Armstrong, said she would have purchased Brown’s house at auction.
“That is a brick house. I would have fixed it up,” she said. “A lot of people don’t even know these houses are for sale.”
A similar program last year led to the sale of 1,200 homes. The city of Detroit isn’t endorsing what county tax officials are doing with the real estate. Ed McNeil, who negotiates labor contracts for union-represented city employees, said it seems unfair to reward people when someone in the same neighborhood may never have missed a tax bill.
  Indeed, retiree George Philson, 63, pays $1,800 a year.
“I would rather have them meet their obligation like I am meeting my obligation,” he said.

John Mogk, a Wayne State University law professor who studies land issues, said 12,300 Detroit parcels were foreclosed because of unpaid taxes last year.    “There is no end in sight,” Mogk said. “The problem is just so large and overwhelming in Detroit.”
The county’s offer could keep Durand and Sharon Micheau in their bungalow, which was purchased in 2010. They lost it because they couldn’t pay three years of unpaid taxes, fines and interest of $17,900.
“We are not looking to dodge our responsibility,” said Durand, 42. “If I could pay the taxes right now, I would, but I don’t have the money.”