Land For Sale from *, a potential rip-off ?

If I don't pay my council tax they won't be seizing my house and throwing me on the streets, I can assure you. Council tax is a property tax.

They could eventually seize goods to the value of what you owe, which in theory could include your house if you let it drag on for long enough for the debt to mount.

Well, in some cases, you CAN lose your house and land if you don't pay the state the annual taxes. There is a period of restitution, usually, but yes, you can lose your land if you don't give Caesar his due. Otherwise, what is the incentive to pay? Throw you in jail? If you're in jail, you still can't pay, and your house isn't earning the sovereign any income.

Every July, Washington, DC has a tax sale on property. It's a large auction. If you win, you pay the DC government the owed taxes, and the property is yours. If there is an outstanding mortgage, you get the obligation to pay the mortgage too. It can be a good deal, if you find a house that is undervalued and doesn't have a stratospheric mortgage. In this day and age of massive foreclosures, it can be a boon. But even if you win the property, the displaced owner has a period of time in which they can make restitution and get their land back.

Here they will eventually. You will be taken to court, the City or County will put a lien on your property and it can be sold to pay back taxes

They'd take my inventory first, there's no way your council tax debts are going to be the same value as your house, it would take about 100 years.

Eventually being the key word in there. How long will LL give me to eventually decide that me no longer being a premium member means I can't own land?

You don't own land here like you do in RL, it's leased. can I go to bed yet?

But you accept the principle, then, that property can be seized to pay debts. No getting out of it on a technicality.

If the tax compounds with fines and interest, it could add up faster than you think. There is the incentive to pay your taxes... but it also ultimately ends in potentially losing your house or your liberty, at which point, you probably should have just lost the house.

Apparently, LL lets people lapse for a couple of months before taking - probably due to Concierge being understaffed to handle all these things.

It is ownership, as much as you can own rl land. Straight from the sovereign. You can go to bed now.

A clever lawyer would get out of it on a technicality.

You must have some damn funny RL land owning system going on where you live, that's all I'm saying

SL is leasehold.

My house is freehold.

The difference is ginormous.

Don't pay the sovereign, the result will be the same. No enjoyment of said property. Either you in jail, or without your house.

And as far as I know, our property system is closely modeled after yours. It is not all that different.

Another example of the tax lien at work:

http://www.sfgov.org/site/treasurer_page.asp?id=8110

What happens if I fail to pay my delinquent taxes?

Your taxes can remain unpaid for a maximum of five years following their tax default, at which time your property becomes subject to the power of sale. This means that your property will be sold at a public auction or acquired by a public agency if you do not pay the taxes before the date on which the property is offered for sale or acquisition.



What is the amount required to redeem tax-defaulted property?

The amount needed to redeem tax-defaulted property in full is the sum of the following:

Total amount of unpaid taxes for all delinquent years.

10% penalty on every unpaid installment.

$10 administrative charge for each delinquent year.

Monthly penalties of 1-1/2% of the unpaid taxes accrued to date.

Redemption fee of $15.

The SL model is leasehold. LL own the land, but they allow me to use the land as I see fit whilst I pay them monthly fees. No mortgage lender in the UK would provide a mortgage to someone in these circumstances. You generally need a lease of above 40 years for them to provide you a mortgage, LL give me a month by month deal. I'm renting space here, it's not owned by me.

No, Ciaran. SL is not a mortgage lender. One of these SL "banks" or another resident owning your property until you repaid the loan would be a mortgage lender.

LL is the sovereign. They permit you to have title to that land. But if you don't pay your appropriate fees, it will go poof in time because the sovereign wants its money. It will get its money one way or the other, and the tax lien is one of the tools at its disposal. If the fines and interest don't prod you to pay, what will? The SL model is just as I cited above, which is common to many US jurisdictions, and probably the UK too.

How funny. A Google search of "failure to pay property tax in UK" results in this:

http://www.livewest.co.uk/community/failure-to-pay-council-tax-could-cost-your-home.php

A judge sitting at Slough County Court has made a bankruptcy order against a Chiswick man who had not paid his council tax for several years, and owed more than £6,000. If he does not pay up, his home will be seized, auctioned off and the proceeds used to pay off his debt.

Doesn't seem so alien to your system of government either.

This forum isn't for general discussion; there are many Resident Sites where this discussion is appropriate - Resident Answers is for Resident-to-Resident help. I'll close this thread...