Rich SF residents shock: Someone bought their street (San Jose, San Francisco: for sale, homeowners association)
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Thanks to a little-noticed auction sale, a South Bay couple are the proud owners of one of the most exclusive streets in San Francisco — and they’re looking for ways to make their purchase pay.
Tina Lam and Michael Cheng snatched up Presidio Terrace — the block-long, private oval street lined by 35 megamillion-dollar mansions — for $90,000 and change in a city-run auction stemming from an unpaid tax bill. They outlasted several other bidders.
Now they’re looking to cash in — maybe by charging the residents of those mansions to park on their own private street.
Were that me, I'd be using that money for good...let those rich folks actually pay for something worthwhile. I hope this couple uses the money for good, but even if they don't, this cracks me up.
Good read! I am a bit jealous of that couple. If I was aware of that auction, I would have been a bidder for sure. There are so many interesting things about this story -- things like how mega-rich homeowners and their lawyers and accountants fail to pay taxes on this private street; and how some Asians from San Jose now own part of this exclusively white neighborhood (albeit only a tiny private street).
I have such a different response to this story. I can't help but wonder just how many tens of thousands of dollars the homeowners have paid into the Homeowners Association. Probably a lot, owing to where the properties are located. (Actually would love to know this amount!)
I think the current situation is due to an egregious lapse of the Homeowner's Association financial officer: and it's gone on for years. I want a lot more information before I do any jeering of the actual people who own lovely, expensive homes on that street. The majority of these people may be elderly and may have sacrificed dearly for many years to be able to have their homes on that street.
They have trusted the Assoc. to have been taking care of all the financial details: that's exactly what these associations are to do and I would expect heads to roll on that board. I would also expect a major lawsuit by the property owners against the Association. I'm guessing that first the street will have to be successfully purchased from the Crafty Couple.
And...I'm not so enamoured of this Crafty Couple. From what I read, their very purpose is rather to hold that street in a sort of ransom until the Homeowner's Association buys it back. Isn't this just too clever. In the picture provided in the article, do not their expressions seem quite smug?
I have such a different response to this story. I can't help but wonder just how many tens of thousands of dollars the homeowners have paid into the Homeowners Association. Probably a lot, owing to where the properties are located. (Actually would love to know this amount!)
I think the current situation is due to an egregious lapse of the Homeowner's Association financial officer: and it's gone on for years. I want a lot more information before I do any jeering of the actual people who own lovely, expensive homes on that street. The majority of these people may be elderly and may have sacrificed dearly for many years to be able to have their homes on that street.
They have trusted the Assoc. to have been taking care of all the financial details: that's exactly what these associations are to do and I would expect heads to roll on that board. I would also expect a major lawsuit by the property owners against the Association. I'm guessing that first the street will have to be successfully purchased from the Crafty Couple.
And...I'm not so enamoured of this Crafty Couple. From what I read, their very purpose is rather to hold that street in a sort of ransom until the Homeowner's Association buys it back. Isn't this just too clever. In the picture provided in the article, do not their expressions seem quite smug?
You make it sounds like the couple are some kind of scammers. They were just one of many bidders in the city auction. They happened to outbid the others and won. If anybody is to be blamed here, it's the people who didn't pay the taxes for years, or the city for not making an attempt to notify the homeowners of the auction.
You make it sounds like the couple are some kind of scammers. They were just one of many bidders in the city auction. They happened to outbid the others and won. If anybody is to be blamed here, it's the people who didn't pay the taxes for years, or the city for not making an attempt to notify the homeowners of the auction.
I'm not calling them scammers. I think the word is opportunist and what they are doing is obviously legal. But to my mind, they do look quite gleeful. It's possible they are young enough to not think of the ramifications. What would be great is if they would make an offer to the homeowners for the price of the unpaid taxes, plus penalties, plus say.....$50 grand. That give them a modest return, but would buy them an ocean of great publicity and good will that could have priceless outcomes.
The fact remains that they are and will be profiting on a mistake, or several. Wealthy property owners such as these wouldn't have withheld paying the taxes because they were cheap individuals. It was a negligence of a proper action that it wasn't dealt with after the very first notice from the city/county. That's my opinion until I know differently.
In my view, there's a high quotient of morals and ethics here to either be upheld or ignored. I'm guessing it will be ignored.
I just don't feel good about it, and I think there will be a group who agree with me. I simply feel sympathetic towards all of the individual homeowners, even those at least some of these are who made the mistake. This situation apparently has been years and years in the forming, the original failure to pay the taxes began...how many years ago?
And...I think it could be found that the city was negligent in their attempts to collect the taxes. Also, I'm guessing some due process of serving notice of the auction was not followed. In fact it could be mostly the city's fault; we just don't know at this point.
I'm not calling them scammers. I think the word is opportunist and what they are doing is obviously legal. But to my mind, they do look quite gleeful. It's possible they are young enough to not think of the ramifications. What would be great is if they would make an offer to the homeowners for the price of the unpaid taxes, plus penalties, plus say.....$50 grand. That give them a modest return, but would buy them an ocean of great publicity and good will that could have priceless outcomes.
The fact remains that they are and will be profiting on a mistake, or several. Wealthy property owners such as these wouldn't have withheld paying the taxes because they were cheap individuals. It was a negligence of a proper action that it wasn't dealt with after the very first notice from the city/county. That's my opinion until I know differently.
In my view, there's a high quotient of morals and ethics here to either be upheld or ignored. I'm guessing it will be ignored.
I just don't feel good about it, and I think there will be a group who agree with me. I simply feel sympathetic towards all of the individual homeowners, even those at least some of these are who made the mistake. This situation apparently has been years and years in the forming, the original failure to pay the taxes began...how many years ago?
And...I think it could be found that the city was negligent in their attempts to collect the taxes. Also, I'm guessing some due process of serving notice of the auction was not followed. In fact it could be mostly the city's fault; we just don't know at this point.
.
I agree with this. The article states it was some $14-a year tax per household that wasn't collected for 30 years. Why would people that rich not pay some stupid $14 fee? That's the equivalent of pennies to them. The fact that this couple is considering charging the residents to park in their own neighborhood is shady. My gut reaction to this story is that these people are lacking in ethics/morals to be considering something like that... in a gated neighborhood! And then keeping quiet about it for 2 years while they discuss ways to turn it into an income stream. Wow.
I wouldn't be surprised if it is the city's fault for not collecting the taxes or who knows what considering they didn't even inform the residents that the land was even up for sale.
ETA: According to this article by SFist the unpaid bill was being sent to an accountant that was no longer employed by the association. So basically being sent to the wrong address for 30 years. How the address never got updated and the HOA missed out on it is curious. I still subscribe to the idea of it being sleazy to try to profit off mistakes like this.
Last edited by likealady; 08-08-2017 at 12:55 AM..
I agree with this. The article states it was some $14-a year tax per household that wasn't collected for 30 years for each of the 181 houses. Why would people that rich not pay some stupid $14 fee? That's the equivalent of pennies to them. The fact that this couple is considering charging the residents to park in their own neighborhood is shady. My gut reaction to this story is that these people are lacking in ethics/morals to be considering something like that... in a gated neighborhood! And then keeping quiet about it for 2 years while they discuss ways to turn it into an income stream. Wow.
I wouldn't be surprised if it is the city's fault for not collecting the taxes or who knows what considering they didn't even inform the residents that the land was even up for sale.
No, I fault the financial officer of the Homeowners Association. He should have been aware and should have been paying the tax out of the dues which are paid each month/year/quarter, however often they are due. And I mean it extending back to 1980 to the time of the change of accountant.
The individual owners over the years could not have known anything about any of this; that's what the HA is for, to take care of this stuff.
There's just a whole lot that isn't right about this.
I have to agree that there was probably a problem with the homeowners association management. But, there is obviously a HOA, if they have a gate with a guard, so they're paying HOA dues. And the landscaping is obviously being taken care of with their dues. So, it stands to reason that they all understood that their HOA owns the common areas. And odds are, the contract with the HOA management company, included them paying the taxes on the common property out of the dues.
So, when the management changed 30 years ago, somehow this responsibility was overlooked, and the new management company wasn't getting the tax bill.
It doesn't make sense to me that the city waited so long to take action, and wouldn't do more in the way of ascertaining who should be given proper notice, after not taking action for 30 years. This tells me the city acted improperly by not finding out who should get notice, and doing it properly.
This couple just may find that their purchase isn't valid, because the sale wasn't proper.
Then, the couple staying under the radar for two years tells me they were trying to get around the statute of limitations for the property owners to sue them, but they're probably in for a big surprise there, too, because the SOL wouldn't start running for the property owners until they were aware of the harm, which would be now. There is probably some rule that the owners had two years to pay the back taxes before the couple would own it outright. And they didn't think about the fact that the owners have to be aware of the bill.
The HOA belongs to the owners, so they wouldn't sue themselves. They'd have to sue the HOA management company. So, then the question would be did the current management company know they should be paying the taxes? Somehow I doubt it.
This is the problem with HOAs, and why I really hate them. They're run by the homeowners - some homeowner was probably the president of their HOA, and some other homeowner was probably the treasurer, and all of a sudden 30 years ago their financials looked better and they didn't figure out it was because they hadn't paid the taxes LOL. And the new management company they hired missed it, too. And then the HOA got new officers who didn't look at prior financials or question anything - because HOA officers don't have to know what they're doing or how to manage money or read financials, etc. - they just have to be homeowners who want to be on the board and get voted in by other owners who don't want to be on the board. And usually, the hired management representative turns over constantly, too, and they show up to the meetings and sit there listening to a bunch of owners go on and on about so and so is feeding feral cats and not cutting their lawn, blah blah.
I wouldn't be surprised if they couldn't find the contract they'd had with the prior management company, when they hired the new one 30 years ago, and probably just signed the new management company's standard contract regarding what their services would cover, and nobody thought of the taxes for the common property. And maybe even the prior manager got fired, so he thought it was entertaining to throw away the tax bills every year LOL.
My armchair prediction is that the city gets sued by the couple who bought the property, when this sale gets nullified because the city didn't give proper notice of the auction to the proper people.
Also, California is a comparative negligence state, which means that if you're partly negligent, you can only collect if the other party was more negligent and only for that percentage over what yours was. So, when the property owners try to sue the city and/or the management company, the court will determine that they were all equally negligent, and so their lawsuits will be thrown out.
And then the property owners will have to pay the back taxes owed to the city. And their HOA financials will not look as good after they pay their attorney, but since they're rich, they'll be fine. And maybe some of the owners can sue their title companies for not finding the missing tax bills before giving them clear title. LOL.
And this lovely, hopeful couple learns the meaning of "if it sounds too good to be true - it probably is." Even in America.
The End.
Last edited by NoMoreSnowForMe; 08-08-2017 at 02:01 AM..
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Another Perspective
