Imagine that you own a home, but not the land on which it sits. You’re a tenant on the land, subject to a 99-year ground lease. As a condition of the ground lease, you are permitted to sell your home … Read more

Changes in federal law rarely affect local property taxes.  An exception occurred on Veteran’s Day when President Obama signed Public Law 111-97, the Military Spouses Residency Relief Act.   This law allows spouses of active-duty military members to retain residency in … Read more

Assume you are a county attorney who gets a call from the tax collector asking your advice on whether the tax office should start foreclosure proceedings on Parcel A.  The property is valued at $25,000 and the county holds a tax lien … Read more

One news outlet reported that in exchange for constructing a data center in North Carolina, Apple Inc. will be reimbursed by North Carolina local governments for “50 percent of tax revenue on real estate property — buildings and land — … Read more

North Carolina auto dealers don’t pay property taxes on the thousands of new and used cars sitting in their lots awaiting buyers.  Walmart doesn’t pay property taxes on the massive amount of stuff for sale at its nearly 100 big-box stores sprinkled across … Read more

An interesting discussion from the Local Government Law listserv last week: Do tax foreclosures extinguish easements?  The answer must be no, don’t you think? If public utility and transportation easements could be extinguished by tax foreclosures, then the authority of … Read more

Consumer bankruptcy filings rose nearly 37% nationwide in the first half of 2009 as compared with the same time period one year ago.  Second quarter bankruptcy statistics for North Carolina are not yet available, but first quarter 2009 filings across the … Read more

Property tax revaluations conducted in the midst of the national economic crisis ignited an explosion of taxpayer outrage across the state in early 2009.  Assuming the local housing market woes continue, counties implementing revaluations in the next few years would … Read more