Oh my…. This site is fun, in a sick kind of way…

Maybe this one posting accounts for how quiet it is on piggington today… everyone off looking up their friends and neighbors tax bill?

And to think there are a lot of Americans who think our government is being invasive when they ask the phone companies for lists of phone calls made for the (alleged) purpose of chasing terrorists. Now the average joe can look right into his neighors’ personal lives to see if they’re doing what he thinks they should be doing.

It is working again now.

Does anybody know how often they update this site? I checked my street and my next door neighbor who just bought his house last year has overdue taxes between 2 properties amounting to about $11,000. He’s a mortgage loan broker of some sort. I hope he’s doing OK financially. He bought his house for almost a million.

-peace

To address your points:

The local governments have building codes to enforce that are intended to develop and maintain health and safety issues as well as other aspects of construction that have an impact on the community. If you think building codes are too restrictive you might go take a look at unregulated areas, like some of the neighborhoods in Tijuana, and see what happens when the comunities don’t enforce standards.

There’s a distinct difference between looking up a sale of a neighboring property to use that information to make a decision or perform an analysis, and looking over our neighbor’s fence to watch them sunbathing in the nude for our personal gratification. Although our society apparently revels in invading the privacy of celebrities and seeing photos of their cellulite and bulging bellies in the tabloids, most civil people will draw the line at openly scrutinizing the contents of the shopper’s basket while standing in line with them at the supermarket. A Japanese family of 4 can live in a 400 SqFt apartment by scrupulously observing personal boundaries. Obviously, we all have our boundaries.

Here’s a rhetorical question: would you approach your neighbor and ask the same question that you’re trying to answer off this database? In the case of sales prices or property attributes, maybe so – I do it all the time when I’m working. In the case of paying their taxes, probably not. If you wouldn’t feel comfortable doing it to their face then how much more socially acceptable should it be when you’re doing it behind their back?

All of this ties back to the purpose of gathering and using the information. If you’re using the information constructively then that’s one thing, if you’re using the information for entertainment purposes then that’s something else.

Just my opinion. Other people can and do disagree.

the records don’t tell the whole story: it appears that the status of the property taxes are not necessairly listed on the street where the property’s located.
For example – my stepfather’s property tax status on a rental he has in Encinitas is listed for his street of residence (mailing address) in Carlsbad.
So if landlord/investor/speculator/flipper owns a house on your street and doesn’t have their tax bill delivered to that house, the tax status is not listed on that street in the tax records it’s listed on the street where the tax bill is sent.