The transaction was fully legal and similar to hundreds of others in the area where investors buy properties with delinquent taxes. I would have more sympathy for SF and the families on the street if they were actually working to change the screwed-up bureaucracy that allowed this sale to happen. However, this seems to be a case where money talks. There's nothing to prevent it from happening again or to protect San Franciscans who don't have an in with the board of supes.<p>(Disclaimer: I work with Tina and can vouch for her character. The character assassination and racist comments leveled against her and her husband in other forums are dismaying.)
I don't have much personal sympathy for anyone involved in this story.<p>From a principled standpoint however, this appears to be a violation of property rights. It is highly unlikely that 'normal' people would've been able to reverse the transaction the way these residents did which makes me root for the clearly predatory real estate schemers.<p>There's no moral party here it's just a question of what type of society you want to live in. I'd rather have the laws apply uniformly regardless of wealth and political influence which led me to my decision.
I hope the couple win this case. It's totally a question of privilege. The notice being sent to the deceased bookkeeper is the adult equivalent of the dog ate your homework.<p>People who are out of work or live on a fixed income (i.e. more legitimate excuses for not paying your property taxes) lose their homes to tax auctions all the time.
I see this like I see a bug bounty. The bug is the fact that they were able to buy the property at all under those circumstances. Their bounty "reward" should be that they can keep the property that they rightfully bought. And now the public is aware of this problem ("bug") and can move to prevent it from happening in the future.
I'm sympathetic to the idea that rich people are being treated differently here. That's almost certainly the case. It's also, of course, always fun to see a bunch of rich folks get some kind of comeuppance.<p>But, to me, it's also pretty clear that the original owners were in the right here. You shouldn't be able to lose something worth $90,000 because of a small administrative oversight without some kind of notice from the government about what is going on. The world shouldn't work that way for anyone, rich or poor.
This is unequal application of the law. If this were an unoccupied house and the bill was sent to the person on file for nearly 40 years, there would be no way out of the foreclosure for poor people. The fact is that the buyers followed the law and the wealthy did not.<p>The wealthy once again got a free ride from the system while working to put others in debt. This is what's broken in our system. The wealthy have the money and should have purchased the land back. Instead they used money to buy political favor. The rich probably paid more in legal expenses than just buying the land back. This is spite and exertion of power, money, and influence, plain and simple. If the rules don't apply equally to everyone, then why do they apply to anyone?
As predicted. This isn't much of a surprise, really - there is too much money on the side of the homeowners to allow someone outside to own a piece of their area.
A bureaucracy-induced property ownership spat between two groups of affluent people in a state that has defined limousine liberalism and a city which has personified it.