Tax Sale

The General Assembly has approved a bill imposing steep penalties on homeowners who are caught getting homestead property tax credits they're not entitled to receive. Fines would equal 25 percent of any undeserved break - a considerable punishment given that the credit currently cuts the tax bills of many Baltimore homeowners by thousands of dollars per year. "Hopefully this significant penalty will deter people from abusing this tax credit in the future," the bill's sponsor, Del. Samuel I. “Sandy” Rosenberg, said Saturday evening after final passage by the House of Delegates.

Whether estimated, misread, misrecorded, or just plain mistaken, no erroneous water bill should send any properties to tax sale ("Tax sale timeout," March 25). In its City Council testimony of March 21, the Public Works and Finance departments pledged to investigate all 2,300 pending tax sales occasioned by water bill liens and to provide documentation of their property-by-property findings of accuracy or error before the April 30 tax sale deadline. Based on these findings, fairness dictates that all categories of questionable water liens must exempt properties from being sold to May 2012 tax sale investors.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake and City Council President Bernard C. “Jack” Young came to an important accomodation Friday in their standoff about tax sales over unpaid water bills. The mayor was probably right that the two-year moratorium on tax sales Mr. Young had proposed endangered the city's bond rating, but Mr. Young was right to stand firm on the principle that no one should risk losing a home based on an estimated water bill. Now the mayor has agreed to send to tax sale only properties for which the unpaid bills are based on acutal meter readings, and that is progress.

Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake agreed Friday to temporarily stop seizing homes over unpaid water bills in cases where the bills were estimated, a practice that city officials say led to widespread inaccuracies. The move is a compromise between Rawlings-Blake and Council President Bernard C. "Jack" Young, who had sought a comprehensive moratorium on home seizures over water bills after an audit showed serious problems with the accuracy of the city's bills. Rawlings-Blake and Young announced the deal Friday.

Baltimore residents who are frustrated over high or unusual water bills will have a chance to vent to city officials Wednesday afternoon. A City Council committee will hold a hearing on a contentious resolution asking MayorStephanie Rawlings-Blake to prevent homes from going to tax sale due to unpaid water bills after a scathing audit showed widespread billing errors. The Sun has detailed numerous billing problems , chronicling one woman's seven-year struggle to convince the city she was being billed neighbors' water usage and a family's efforts to resolve a whopping $16,000 bill.

Rhonda Wimbish says she has been battling Baltimore officials over a $300 water bill — more than six times her normal rate — for more than a year. Now Wimbish, a single mother of a disabled child, says her West Baltimore home is scheduled to go to tax sale over the bill, which she maintains is inaccurate. "What do I do? Do I pay my inflated water bill or do I feed my child?" Wimbish said to a City Council committee Wednesday evening. "I've gone through your process. I've done everything I could to fight this bill.

Lillie M. Oliver and her husband, Lawrence, have lived in their East Baltimore rowhouse since the 1960s. The couple, who have been married 65 years, said they were terrified recently of losing the house they worked so hard to purchase because of an outrageous $41,000 water bill, which the retirees could not afford to pay. Prompted by my office, workers with the Department of Public Works investigated the matter and reduced the Olivers' bill to...

Baltimore's top elected officials are battling over whether the city should seize homes because of unpaid water bills after a recent audit found widespread billing errors. MayorStephanie Rawlings-Blakesays eliminating the threat of liens could endanger the city's bond rating. No moratorium is needed, she says, because only those residents who have ignored a year's worth of bills could lose their homes. "At the end of the day, when you reach the tax sale list, it's because you've made no attempt - not a payment plan, not a contact, nothing," the mayor said.

Haven't paid your city property taxes? Then you're on the city's list of owners whose properties could end up in tax sale this May, along with nearly 27,000 others who (as of last week) were behind on taxes, water bills or other city tabs. That's more than 10 percent of city properties, located in neighborhoods as varied as Poppleton and the Inner Harbor . If previous years are any judge, many owners will pay up quickly and avoid tax sale altogether. Here's an interactive map that shows where all the properties are. You can click on the dots for more details, including the address, who owns and how much the city says they owe. (Keep in mind that some may have paid already -- and at least one is an error .)