This is a very aggressive law, but there are reasons that the law is written this way. Drawn-out processes to seize property tend to lead to higher levels of vacancy and destruction of the property.
Local governments often don't know who the beneficial owner of a property is, especially with low-end rentals. I used to consult to a local utility. Probably 30% of the properties were owned by LLCs where the owner was unknown. At least a half dozen had bills sent to people known to be dead. In this case you're looking at a landlord in his 80s who doesn't get mail regarding his rental property sent to his home. It sucks, but once there's a lien on the property you're SOL as a property owner.
> It sucks, but once there's a lien on the property you're SOL as a property owner.
That implies that any home with a mortgage means you're SOL. Does this mean ownership is dead? The US has a mix of title-theory and lien-theory states. In lien-theory states, a mortgage counts as a lien on the home. Michigan, in particular, is an intermediary state, in which case the mortgage does have some component of a lien. It gets complicated since each state has it's own rules.
I understand why they might want to have a different process for vacant/unmaintained properties, but in the article it looks like this is happening to occupied properties in good condition (or even actively under construction)!
I also don't understand why it's appropriate to keep the whole house value after auction, even when it's 100x (or in some examples in the article 1000x) the taxes owed and the owner is known.
There's other stuff in the article where it seems like the local governments deliberately want to avoid the owner discovering their tax liability. For example they make the current year's tax bill not mention any existing tax debt (which may be from a different owner). In one example the county treasurer calls the owner of a new home under construction only *after" the deadline, just to tell them that they've been waiting out the clock on the tax debt of a previous owner, and they plan to seize the house and refuse any payment on the balance!
I don't see the public interest in this aside from trying to turn communication issues into huge financial windfalls for local governments (due to asset confiscation), with the perverse incentive that the party responsible for notifying people gets the windfall if that process fails.
The former owner would most probably get ripped off, a lot.
This solves the problem without creating (too large of) a perverse incentive for the county government.