James Ballinger a Jefferson county attorney filed for a lawsuit which questions pre-litigation charges. The lawsuit alleges that the Jamos Fund I LP, of Fort Thomas, Ky., is violating that stipulation by tacking on exorbitant legal fees before the year expires, merely for sending notices to taxpayers that their bills have been purchased.

    This is amazing news. Companies that buy delinquent property tax bills are charging unnecessary, exorbitant and illegal legal fees to owners who want to reclaim their property -- and preying on the elderly and unsophisticated, according to a lawsuit filed in Jefferson Circuit Court.he suit, filed earlier this month on behalf of an 86-year-old woman and two other plaintiffs, says that charging attorneys' fees, often within a year after the sales, is both unlawful and unethical. He said that the suit is the first of its kind filed in Kentucky and that the state's courts have never decided whether pre-litigation expenses can be charged during the year after a tax certificate is purchased.
      Now here is the catch, Mr James Ballinger also represents American Tax Funding Servicing. Now this is bizarre. A vulture taking another vulture to court of law?

Interesting connections In Kentucky Property Tax Lien Market

                                     A  JPMorgan Chase & Co. subsidiary is among at least three companies being investigated as part of a U.S. Justice Department antitrust probe of bidding at municipal tax-lien auctions in New Jersey. Idea was simple, creating multiple entities and outbid the market. Collusion is illegal because it's main purpose is to deceive regulatory bodies to believe that they are dealing separate entities but instead all the profits are channeled to the same umbrella entity in the end of the day. It is an illusion of competative markets to the outsider.
                                  Since market is very lucrative, collusion is a very tempting route for experienced attorneys. Third party tax lien buyers needs to declare if they are related to a previously registered buyer.

                            An interesting relationship exists between Lexington Kentucky based Kentucky Tax Lien Fund LLC and Florida based American Tax Funding LLC. KTLF was registered by the law firm attorney Scott Budnick of WYATT, TARRANT & COMBS and Mr. Bradford Cowgill, a lexington attorney, was listed as the organizer. WYATT, TARRANT & COMBS is also the same lawfirm who is in charge of collection efforts of "American Tax Funding LLC.", another tax lien buyer. All this can be a conspiracy theory coming out of my simple mind. It will be very interesting to find that who is funding KTLF and Mr. Bradford Cowgill.

Tax Ease Liens' Donations Under Radar

 
                 It is always interesting to look at campaign contributions and how people allocate their campaign funds. Isn't that Jack Abramoff  became a media darling when he used his money to buy political favors. When a Dallas based company owners Phil Migicovsky and Robert Stenton makes $1200 contributions each for Kentucky Attorney General, Jack Conway's senate race, it raised question marks.Why a Dallas company will pick Kentucky to make this donation but nobody else. For example why not Tenesse or Georgia but only Kentucky?
        Is it not a conflict of interest when Attorney general accepts a donation from a company which it supposed to regulate and investigate? One of the rules of being a third party Tax Lien Purchaser in Kentucky is to be never under investigation by Attorney General's office. I do not know all the details about this interesting relationship, but I am pretty sure, truth will reveal itself very soon. 

People Involved

American Tax Funding (juniper, FL) --> Tower Capital Management (Foreign company registered in NJ)

How these houses were purchased

Tax Ease Lien Investments 1, LLC
v. James Morse, et al.
09-CI-01056
120 Burris
Dawson Springs, Kentucky

Tax Ease Lien Investments 1, LLC
v. Ronald R. Bryant, et al.
09-CI-01057
1406 Redbud Lane
Madisonville, Kentucky
MAP:  M-34-20-15

Crittenden County Meet Vultures in 2007

       A peaceful Kentucky county, Crittenden County met their vulture investors in 2007 for the first time. According the county clerk, Carolyn Byford, she had never witnessed a third party buyer buying a tax lien.  Tax Ease lien started investing by buying 37 liens, for a total price of $29,211. This was recorded by "The Crittenden Press" in 2007.

Lincoln County, KY, A legal victory against Tax Ease LLC.

        It is always a pleasent outcome when a victim starts a legal battle and wins in the court.
In  recent court records from Lincoln County Kentucky, a local circuit Judge stated in a summary judgment that Attorney Fee's charges by Tax Ease Lien were in violation of Kentucky statues that regulates this practice

         Betty Martin, the property owner in Lincoln County, had seen her $254.33 tax lien soar to $1,246 before foreclosure action was even started. This was a clear violation of the Kentucky Statues.

I do not think this incidence is an isolated case and a possible heralding case for a class action lawsuit. Tax Ease's attorney is a well-known Kentucky attorney, Virginia Lawson, who is an expert

in real estate law. Mrs. Lawson had practiced real estate law for 21 years and it is very hard to believe she made such a basic misake. We would like to know the details of her relationship with Tax Ease Lien Investments. more importantly want to know how she calculates her attorney fees and her fee agreements with her clients.             

            

Attorney General Peter Nickles resigns

    Peter Nickles As attorney general of District of Columbia, resigns. He was one of the main advocates against abuses in the field ot property tax collections. He started investigations against companies like Chicago-based Aeon Financial LLC. He was one of the leaders in bringing attention to unregulated practices of major Wall Street Banks. According to the attorney generals office Aeon Financial is not the only company that they are investigating.
            "The imposition of taxes is one of the most feared powers of government, and when that power is transferred to a private entity, not only are they not accountable like the government, but their incentives are entirely different,” says Frank Alexander, a law professor at Emory University who specializes in Georgia real estate and foreclosure law. “The investor’s only incentive is to maximize profits.”

Publicani: Private Taxman of the Roman Empire

 Outsourcing tax collection to private individuals is not a new concept. It has its roots in ancient Rome and it had been tainted with corruption from its first days.The name for the private taxman was Publicani.
       Roman Empire, due to its immense size and difficulty in coordinating tax collection efforts, resorted to privatization of tax collections. Most of the Tax collection privilages were granted to warlord, senators or local nobility which was also called publicani.