Unpaid Real Estate Taxes Leave Bronx Homeowners Scrambling To Get Off City 'Lien List'

In The Bronx, New York, the New York Daily News reports:

• The latest realty industry statistics might signal an end to the foreclosure epidemic that ravaged New York neighborhoods in 2009, but for those in the hard-hit northwest Bronx, the fear of losing their homes is still palpable.(1)



• Nearly 3,000 private homes and businesses face the threat of lien sales by next month, making them prime candidates for foreclosure, according to the nonprofit University Neighborhood Housing Program.



• Ominous news like this drew dozens of Bronxites looking for help to the West Bronx Homeowner Resource Fair in the Davidson Center Wednesday night.



• Attendee Wayne Mayo, 46, knows the fear of making the lien list. He recently scrambled to get his father's Highbridge home of 45 years off the city's list of properties to be sold by Aug. 2. Mayo said his father, an 80-year-old World War II veteran on a fixed income, fell behind on bills after becoming ill. "The reason I'm here today is to make sure he doesn't end up on the list again," he said.

For more, see Bronxites scramble to avoid lien list; Home-saving clinic big draw for residents facing forclosure.

(1) Once the liens are sold, homeowners have six months and thirty days from the date of the tax sale to satisfy this lien with the tax lien servicer before the servicer has the right to initiate a foreclosure action on the property.

Go here for more on New York City's Annual Lien Sale, and here for tax lien servicer FAQs.