How to steal your neighbor's property and avoid jail
Jun
23
From Bob Bruss at Inman News,
“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s property” is part of the Ten Commandments. But real estate law in every state says it is all right to steal your neighbor’s land without going to jail if you comply with state law.That news may be shocking. However, it’s true. In fact, statutes in every state encourage the theft of your neighbor’s unused property.
The selfish reason is the state wants to collect as much property tax as possible by keeping property in use.
But when a property is vacant and unused, the rightful owner often fails to pay the property taxes. So state laws encourage stealing property and returning it to the property tax rolls. [more...]
It’s not something that happens overnight, but since I get so many emails from people asking about neighboring properties that have been abandoned/vacant for decades, perhaps there’s some merit to this process…
Matt, We’re having a debate here. Would you mind not deleting my posts.
The numbered statements are those of anonymous and supported by Cameron. The responses are mine.
1. supply/demand doesn’t apply to San Francisco Real estate (see above for initial link on this).
The link doesn’t work.
2. we should have zero evictions (evictions are bad for those being evicted – but those only effect a small proportion of San Franciscans. Not allowing people to buy homes and the outflow out of SF affects many more people)
First, I never said we should have 0 evictions. Second, I never said we should not allow people to buy homes. Third, what is “outflow out of SF?”
3. rent control good! (see prior links refuting this – it impacts supply and drives up costs and actually benefits landlords not tenants)
Again, the links don’t work. Yes, I understand that rent control impacts supply, I’m still for it. Don’t get your point here.
4. Gentrification bad! (Property taxes pay for a huge chunk of everything you see in the city – golden gate park, homeless programs, Chris Daly’s salary etc etc. Besides who wants to have their children play in urine/feces encrusted steps?)
Again, I don’t disagree that gentrification increases property tax receipts. So far, you’ve refuted nothing I’ve said.
5. Gentrification =’s higher prices =’s more gentrification (Click on link above to SFHomeBlog – big-day-for-housing comments post analyzing how this doesn’t make sense).
The link doesn’t work. I’d really like to see this one. Here we might actually disagree.
and that’s just the things I can think of in 15 minutes … is that enough for you to chew on Kurt b/c there’s more.
You refuted nothing, but said a lot. Nice job.
KK
KK at June 24th, 2006 at 7:36 pm ( )