Polically connected bought Property Tax liens unethically

When politically connected buys your in Madison County Illinois at an advantage. These guys make huge gains when they add attorney fees.

Now there is a big class action going on which claims countless homeowners were cheated in the process.

"Former county Treasurer Fred Bathon admitted in court that tax sales from 2005-08 were fixed to benefit politically connected insiders in the business of lending money to landowners in arrears. Sales records and Illinois campaign contribution data show that a small group of contributors to the re-election fund for Bathon, a Democrat, bought the bulk of the liens"


This reminds me what happened in Kentucky. Former State treasurer, Brad Cowgill actually started his own company Kentucky Tax Lien fund to ripp Kentuckians. I hate to see this conflict of interest issues aimed to rob property owners.

Anybody who gets a bill from Kentucky Tax Lien and Brad Cowgill should contact us.

Brad Cowgill,

 Former  State Treasurer of Kentucky, new property tax lien investor

Pig Iron Press falls victim to greedy Property Tax lien Investors

In Youngstown Ohio, A small business owner falls victim to the American Tax Funding LLC. Which bought the delinquent property taxes on his business property for $4000 and now trying to collect four times that.

Jim Villani, owner of Pig Iron Press, already paid $9000 and still facing foreclosure.

Yes city governments, this is what happens when you go to bed with greedy companies like American Tax Funding. They destroy local communities.

If they only collect the tax and interest I will understand.

But buying a $4000 lien to collect $10000+ in attorney fees is just a big scam. I would love to expose the law firms working with ATF. If you have a delinquent property tax lien owned by American Tax Funding please contact us.

Here is the sad  news about Jim Villani

30000$ property Tax lien in Rochester, NY

American Tax Funding bought this old lady's 30000$ worth of delinquent property tax liens. Community came to her rescue to pay the lien. One questions remains, how much attorney fees were loaded to the lien in the first place.

This poor lady might not paying just her taxes and interest a little bit more.

Here is the news link..


We will here more and more tragedies like this as long as cities like Rochester continues to sell delinquent property taxes to American Tax Funding.

If you have a property tax lien owned by American Tax Funding, we might be able to help you. Please contact me..

American Tax Fundings wanted to sue City of Syracuse

American tax funding invested a lot of money in New York, most of the time cutting the deal directly with the city. In most cases, city governments tempted to sell all of the defaulted tax liens directly and exclusively to American Tax Funding without a competitive process. 

Well cities are now in conflict with the ATF because every year, there is a new tax lien comes up and ATF may not be able to willing to continue to buy these liens. Now there will be two competing set of liens, ones owned by ATF and ones owned by the city on the same property.

So if city demolishes the building, ATF loses their investment. If one of these parties foreclose first, the other party will lose money.

Greedy and unsophisticated city councils made a stupid mistake by selling their souls to ATF. Situation gets very tricky when ATF already has a payment plan with the homeowner, who can not pay the new tax lien owned by the city.

I would love to see how much ATF is charging in attorney fees. If you are a homeowner and your lien is puchased by ATF, please contact us. We would like to know your story and may be help you.

Here is a story of an investor in Syracuse, which might be interesting.

Hedge Funds are after your tax liens in Denver Colorado

Hedge fund executives who start their own gigs also try to replicate successful business practices they learned in their previous employer. Janus is one of those hedge funds which pionerred investing in property tax liens.

Denver-based Arrowpoint Asset Management, a $1.7 billion hedge fund owned by David Corkins and two other former fund managers who worked with him at Janus.

In the past two years, its AP PTL bought up 886 Denver Colorado property tax liens — nearly a quarter of all those for sale, records show. If you have any lines from these guys in Colorado, please share with us. We are looking people who received a tax bill from "AP PTL" in Denver Colorado.

Here is an article about this in Denver Post.

The Other Foreclosure Crisis

                                                           by Lachin Hatemi M.D.    

      Here is an article I found interesting. Defaulted property tax liens is a 15 billion dollar market. Amazing summary of this racket is mentioned in CNN.



"NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- People are losing their homes over unpaid tax bills that, in some cases, add up to just a few hundred dollars.
Outdated state laws that allow local governments to sell tax liens on delinquent properties to investors in order to more quickly collect on overdue property taxes is sparking a second "foreclosure crisis," a report from the National Consumer Law Center said Tuesday [ Click for the Rest].

Property Tax Lien Linvestor is Spanked in Court :-)

                                                       by Lachin Hatemi M.D.

A Louisville, Kentucky judge denied Tax Ease Liens' attempt to charge outrageous attorney fee. We are tried of these companies try to foreclose on properties for their lousy 200-300$ tax liens. Judge did the right thing and we applaud him for his decision. I hope Phil Migicovsky, owner of Tax Ease Liens, learned a lesson from this decision and other judges across the nation follows the suit.

Here we go, I love this story,......

TAX EASE LIEN INVESTMENTS 1, LLC v. HINKLE

TAX EASE LIEN INVESTMENTS 1, LLC APPELLANT,

v.

WINSTON COTNER HINKLE, A/K/A WINSON COTNER HINKLE; UNKNOWN SPOUSE OF WINSTON COTNER HINKLE, A/K/A WINSON COTNER HINKLE; DEBORAH BROTHERS; UNKNOWN SPOUSE OF DEBORAH BROTHERS; WILLIAM HINKLE; UNKNOWN SPOUSE OF WILLIAM HINKLE; SOUTHERN TAX SERVICES, LLC; CITY OF LA CENTER; AND COMMONWEALTH OF KENTUCKY, COUNTY OF BALLARD, BY AND ON RELATION OF JONATHAN MILLER, SECRETARY OF FINANCE AND ADMINISTRATION CABINET APPELLEES AND

TAX EASE LIEN INVESTMENTS 1, LLC APPELLANT,

SANDRA LYNN; UNKNOWN SPOUSE OF SANDRA LYNN AND BALLARD COUNTY, KENTUCKY APPELLEES AND

TAX EASE LIEN INVESTMENTS 1, LLC APPELLANT,

v.

GARY LINDSEY; STARR LINDSEY, A/K/A STARR MINICH AND BALLARD COUNTY, KENTUCKY APPELLEES AND

TAX EASE LIEN INVESTMENTS 1, LLC APPELLANT,

v.

JEFFERY GRAVES AND BALLARD COUNTY, KENTUCKY APPELLEES AND

TAX EASE LIEN INVESTMENTS 1, LLC APPELLANT,

v.

EQUITY TRUST COMPANY CUSTODIAN FBO AND BALLARD COUNTY, KENTUCKY APPELLEES AND

TAX EASE LIEN INVESTMENTS 1, LLC APPELLANT,

v.

WILLIAM G. STANTON; MICHAEL D. STANTON; JAMES J. STANTON; UNKNOWN SPOUSE OF JAMES J. STANTON; UNKNOWN SPOUSE OF WILLIAM G. STANTON; JAMOS FUND I, LP AND BALLARD COUNTY, KENTUCKY APPELLEES AND

TAX EASE LIEN INVESTMENTS 1, LLC APPELLANT,

v.

DAVID L. ROBINSON; BALLARD COUNTY, KENTUCKY AND UNKNOWN SPOUSE OF DAVID L. ROBINSON APPELLEES AND

TAX EASE LIEN INVESTMENTS 1, LLC APPELLANT,

v.

RONNIE TABER AND BALLARD COUNTY, KENTUCKY APPELLEES.

Nos. 2011-CA-000652-MR, 2011-CA-001162-MR, 2011-CA-001173-MR, 2011-CA-001174-MR, 2011-CA-001175-MR, 2011-CA-001176-MR, 2011-CA-001177-MR, 2011-CA-001666-MR

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

Rendered: October 19, 2012.

R. Eric Craig, P. Blaine Grant, Daniel P. Cherry, Louisville, Kentucky, BRIEF FOR APPELLANT.

No Brief filed for appellees, BRIEF FOR APPELLEE.

BEFORE: COMBS AND THOMPSON, JUDGES; LAMBERT,¹ SENIOR JUDGE.

---

OPINION

THOMPSON, JUDGE:

These eight appeals filed by Tax Ease Lien Investments 1, LLC, a third-party purchaser of tax liens, have been consolidated. The issues presented are whether the trial court abused its discretion when it reduced Tax Ease's request for attorney's fees incurred during foreclosure actions to enforce tax liens and whether a pro rata distribution of the foreclosure sale proceeds should have been ordered to all tax lien holders. We hold that the trial court did not abuse its discretion when determining the reasonableness of the litigation fees requested but erred when it did not order a pro rata distribution of the sale proceeds.²

Except for the amount of attorney's fees requested and the varying amounts awarded, the substantive facts are the same and the trial court's reasoning regarding the fees and pro rata distribution identical. To avoid redundancy, we only recite the facts in Hinkle v. Tax Ease Lien Investments I, LLC, 2011-CA-000652-MR.

Tax Ease purchased a certificate of delinquency on April 28, 2008, for $371.21. On April 30, 2010, it filed a complaint in the Ballard Circuit Court to enforce its rights to collect the amount due for the certificate of delinquency, accrued interest, attorney's fees and costs. A default judgment, summary judgment, and an order of sale were entered on March 16, 2011.

Tax Ease's attorney submitted an affidavit for an award of attorney's fees detailing the work performed and the hours expended to enforce the certificate of delinquency and complete the foreclosure process. The affidavit stated a total amount of time expended of fourteen and one-half hours and that the firm had agreed to accept a flat fee of $1,300, which equated to $89.66 per hour worked.³

The trial court reduced the amount awarded for litigation fees from $1,300 to $130 and reduced the request for prelitigation attorney's fees from $445.28 to $300.97.⁴ Finally, the court denied Tax Ease's request that the sale proceeds be distributed pro rata to all parties with valid tax liens. Tax Ease challenges only the reduction in litigation fees awarded and the pro rata distribution of the sale proceeds. 

Greg Voss in action for Tax Lien Investor: Jamos Fund

Check out this letter. Attorney Greg Voss is doing his magic, trying to collect a property tax lien on behalf of Jamos Fund LP. This is happening in Metcalfe County in Kentucky!



It is amazing how he charges almost 290$ for just sending this letter to collect 25.61$ in interest income. This is just the beginning...

If the recepient of this letter does not follow up, this fees can easily become 2000-3000$ when attorney fees are added. Such a racket. Profit margins in this business is huge at the expense of homeowners.

 

How IRS expose Tax Lien Fraudsters?

              Some private investors, hedge funds and corporations found the treasure chest in property tax liens. States allow investors to charge 8-20% in interest charges for their troubles. But strange things had been reported by the homeowner  victims of tax lien investors.

 

     Some investors had been fighting tooth and nail to buy your 200-300$ tax lien.

As you might expect, interest income on such a lien is minuscule. Where is the money trail?
Well here is the loophole. Attorneys are allowed to charge "reasonable" attorney fees for their efforts to collect these funds. So some of these companies charge 1000% of the total face value. So your 300$ lien magically transforms to $3000 after attorneys do their magic.

 This does not pass the smell test.

Attorneys make fortunes charging crazy attorney fees on these liens. So I would like to know if these attorneys pay their income taxes on those fees. If these funds are really "reasonable", attorneys are expected to pay income taxes on this income. If these attorneys kick back some of their fees back to the investors, such fees are not really reasonable and attorneys committed fraud.
IRS is essential in exposing this fraud if such scheme exists.

Follow the money and you will find the truth. And the truth will set you free....  

I would highly recommend IRS start keep tabs on companies like "Tax Ease Liens, Kentucky Tax Lien fund and their attorneys, just to keep them honest.