Wealthy SF residents to get private street back, despite skipping taxes | Hacker News Reader

Wealthy SF residents to get private street back, despite skipping taxes

washingtonpost.com

70 pointstanderson9237 comments

Of course, taxes are for little people and really little taxes ($14/yr) are both unimportant and worthy of a personal letter from a Senator.

Now you might wonder how the taxes are so low for a parcel in one of if not the most exclusive pieces of real estate in SF. That would be because of Prop 13 which locked in that $14/year way back in 1978. Most of the houses on that private block are also the beneficiary of Prop 13 because you wouldn't want to raise taxes on grandma. For example, here's the tax bill for 5 Presidio Terrace:

https://ttxonlineportal.sfgov.org/content/San-Francisco-Form...

Not bad for a $10M house. Now I'm sure that grandma really appreciates Howard Jarvis (and Dianne Feinstein) but for us little people, we pay more so they can pay less.

https://www.zillow.com/homes/5-Presidio-Ter,-San-Francisco,-...

This reeks.

The senator in question, by the way, is Diane Feinstein, a longstanding and very senior member of what passes for a "socialist" party in the US.

And how do we fix this ? Obviously this is the result of government being corrupt, and for decades in the pocket of a small group of rich people, regardless of who gets elected.

I mean, this cannot be fixed by more government regulation, since if it so much as forces these people to buy the land they use privately, it immediately gets repealed. Don't tell me that this organisation is going to really raise taxes on them, because ... it's not. It's just not going to do that.

Obviously smaller government is also not the answer. But ...

Actually, the reason the taxes on this parcel were only $14/yr was Prop 13 and Prop 13 was passed by the Californian electorate. And calling Feinstein any kind of Socialist is a hoot.

That's the point of my comment. She is a democrat, the supposedly left leaning party of the US.

And if a senator personally intervenes on anyone's behalf for personal reasons (like obviously here), that by itself is very wrong in my book. Even if it actually costs them money I would still find it corrupt.

Proposition 13 was advocated by that noted socialist Ronald Reagan, when he was governor of California.

[Edit: not 14, 13!]

Here's the bill for the parcel in question: https://ttxonlineportal.sfgov.org/content/San-Francisco-Form...

As with other public notices, the tax collector doesn't normally take "you didn't tell me" as an excuse.

> “In the United States, no one should lose property at the hands of the government without knowing it,” Feinstein wrote.

Wish she would say something about asset forfeiture then, but nope, she and Harris are hugely in favor of that despicable practice. For shame!

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/449668/jeff-sessions-c...

> It is unclear how Cheng and his wife will get their money back.

Wait, what?

I surely hope they get their money back.

The gov holds an auction, they bid, they win, but now they take the thing they auctioned off and _don't plan_ on reimbursing with interest and perhaps good will?

Take the city to court.

If this isn't favoritism, I don't know what is. It goes without saying that if these neighbors hadn't been obscenely rich, the sale would not have been overturned. This seems to be another way that money can buy one injustice in the US. How does the couple who bought the land get compensated for their loss? That $90k could have been invested in any number of things and put to work making more money. They should at least get the maximum possible interest allowed by law. The proper solution would have been to let the sale stand, of course, and let the neighbors buy their street back because they are such irresponsible idiots. But no, we don't hold the rich responsible for their actions. Maybe we ought to think about doing so at some point while it's still possible ...

If they were to buy it back then the taxes would be reassessed (due to Prop 13), and they would have to pay a lot more n on-going taxes versus a one-time cost of donating to a US Senator.

"despite skipping taxes"

From another article: > For at least 17 years, the city's Office of the Treasurer and Tax Collector mailed tax forms to the address of a now deceased bookkeeper, who worked for the homeowners' association before retiring in the 1980s. Over the years, the $14 annual property tax went unpaid by the people who live on Presidio Terrace. (San Francisco taxes the private street as a separate parcel from the homes on it.) The bill racked up hundreds more dollars in penalties and interest.

Presidio Terrace, along with 1,400 other parcels (mostly vacant lots), hit the auction block in 2015. The tax collector's office sent advanced notice to the same outdated address, which was later returned to sender and marked as undeliverable, according to José Cisneros, treasurer of the city and county of San Francisco. Still, the sale went on.

So, this is mostly sensationalist coverage.

Properties that don't abut wealthy people's properties are auctioned off for unpaid taxes all the time, and they're never given back after the intervention of a U.S. Senator.

I mean I'd argue they probably would be given back if a U.S. Senator argued for them, but that doesn't happen.

Those 1400 other parcels did not have their sale overturned if/when protested. This parcel did, potentially because of Sen. Feinstein's involvement or affluence of the residents

It would be super easy to jump on them because they're rich and live in a mansion, but if this happened to homeowners who weren't rich, I'd want them to have the opportunity to buy it back, too.

They need to pay their tax bill (which actually isn't that much) and call it a day.

I find the interesting question to be: if the homeowner were not rich would they have a sitting U.S. Senator write a letter on their behalf and have a special hearing to decide the issue? By the way, there were 549 other tax sales dispensed with in an identical manner.

How many were the sale of a private street that served 20+ residences?

> if the homeowner were not rich would they have a sitting U.S. Senator write a letter on their behalf and have a special hearing to decide the issue?

Almost certainly not and I do believe that the Senator's interference is unethical.

I'm pretty sure Feinstein used to live on Presidio Terrace. Her longtime friend, the late Merla Zellerbach, lived there as well, so she has a personal interest in the situation.

All I can say is, write to your senator and find out. All officials elected to offices at or above the (big) city council level will have constituent-service staff.

"In the United States, no one should lose property at the hands of the government without knowing it" Feinstein wrote on their behalf.

Are we allowed to use this defense in a court of law? I know many people, myself included that have had assets both (monetary and physical) taken by the government both (local and state) without direct knowledge of its potential occurrence. Seems like this case could open Pandora's box

Name one.

The gist of the responses seems to be that it is unfair that the home owners got treated in a reasonable fashion only because they had a senator to interceded on their behalf.

If instead, Grandma got evicted from her house because they stopped sending $14/yr tax bills to her because the address was wrong, would you think it was “fair”?

If the system is fked up, we shouldn’t be up in arms when someone gets treated reasonably. Instead, I’m hearing something analogous to “We shouldn’t pardon some innocent people on death row, it wouldn’t be fair to all the other innocent people on death row.”

If a group of innocent millionaires on death row were to be pardoned while a group of innocent poor people were not pardoned that would definitely raise an eyebrow for me and it would be worth considering that maybe their innocence was not the motivating factor

Feinstein is one outstanding oligarch.

The atmosphere and oceans are nearly destroyed and this is what we choose to discuss? Irrelevant.

This is super clickbaity and full of rich-hate. The city sent a bill to a deceased person for years, and it's basically pocket change to the people that live there. It would be absurd for the city to sell the street over something like this.

I _do_ think we should also talk about the fact that the tax is pocket change for them.. that's not a small piece of land.

Lets focus on the fact they were never told about the tax. Would you like to lose your home because of a tax where notices were mailed to the wrong place?

If this situation were to happen to him, he would only have legal remedies, not the ability to use political influence (since he lacks sufficient capital). He could sue for reversal or buy it back. He would almost certainly lose the suit since it was his responsibility, as an adult, to tell the Government where to send the bill. The Government doesn't care why you failed to live up to your obligation of informing them, and you had over a decade to find and correct your mistake.

Buying it back would work, but cost more than buying someone's political influence to aid you since not only would there be a substantial up-front buy but also the property would be reassessed and have much greater on-going tax liability. However, he lacks the monetary capital to buy influence and banks will not send you money for that so you must be rich to get this special treatment. He is not rich, so he would get treated equal to anyone else who was not rich -- under the law.

The government works for the people, not the other way around. It has to follow basic rules of fairness, including making reasonable efforts to contact owners it already has names and addresses of before taking their property. The fact that anyone today believes otherwise is just a signal we are getting closer to needing our government to be replaced.

The property owners told the Government how to contact them and the Government obeyed their wishes.

The tax bill is a public record, and any responsible property owner would make sure it's paid.

“There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the planning charts and demolition orders have been on display at your local planning department in Alpha Centauri for 50 of your Earth years, so you’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. … What do you mean you’ve never been to Alpha Centauri? Oh, for heaven’s sake, mankind, it’s only four light years away, you know. I’m sorry, but if you can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s your own lookout. Energize the demolition beams.”

-Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy

Do you not think that once in 30 years one the ~50 rich, seemingly very intelligent people that live on that street didn't step out onto it and think, "Hey.. this is a nice private street we have here. The property taxes on it must be killer. Hmm.. I wonder who pays those.. maybe I'll bring it up at the next HOA meeting."

Why do I get the feeling that the same people defending the residents of this street wouldn't bat an eye at condemning a poor person whose electricity gets shut off because the bill was sent to their former address and they simply forgot abou tit?

I think you are confusing your animus for selfish rich people with what it fair. Property taxes on that street were $14 year per home I believe. When you depend on your HOA dues to pay them [and the HOA apparently hired an accountant to actually pay them], you probably aren't going to notice a discrepancy.

The dollar amount isn't the point. The city auctions off many plots like this over unpaid taxes. Would the past owner of any other plot been able to have a senator advocate their case and have the sale overturned? A tax sale has never been overturned in the past.

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