I believe here in Ca you have 4 or 5 years to pay your property taxes before it goes to a tax sale. Some people defer paying taxes and invest that money. So if a person invests that money and can make 6% interest or better for a few years then pay their taxes and take a 4% hit for a penalty they have come out ahead.

Five years. http://www.sdcounty.ca.gov/ttc/au_faqs.html

Taxes and interest will eat a defaulter alive. The interest rate is approximately 18%. California has authorized Tax Lien Certificates even though most counties don’t sell them, they just keep that fat interest for themselves.

5 years. Although if they’re having problems, they’ll probably go into foreclosure before then…

But, I generally wouldn’t just use the tax information to assess whether someone is doing well or not.
1) A lot of folks forget to pay.
2) Some folks actually don’t pay until close to 5 years intentionally, because they feel they can beat the penalties if they take the money and invest it elsewhere (Yes, I never understood this one) (neighbor does this).
3) Some can’t pay due to a cash flow issue and wait to the end to rejuggle their finances to pay.

Anyway, why should you care about what others said, after so long anyway? Why bother comparing yourself to the Jones down the street anyway? Suppose they are doing bad (probably). Do you really plan to rub their noses in the ground? If you’re happy with your decision for moving upstate NY, great..Get on with your life instead of wasting time on people that obviously don’t care about you and that you shouldn’t care about. You shouldn’t need a validation of their ultimate demise for you to feel like you made the right decision on moving. That would be petty, imho.

The thread was prefaced with “I have a SICK habit…” Being more than petty was already acknowledged. No “sermons” needed.

Here is another tax question.
I have been building my home for a long time(it’s a long story). I sold my house in the city in the spring of 2005. I have lived in a trailer on my property since then. My house is almost ready for the final inspection.My current property has been my mailing address all the while.If I sell it do I have to pay capital gains?

Nancy,

Do yourself a favor. Stop comparing yourself to others. There’s really no point. If things turn out sour for those folks, it’s not really helping your life out. And if their demise doesn’t occur they way you want it to, you’ll feel slightly bitter and end up a grumpy, bitter, mean person like me 🙂 You don’t win either way. Make the decisions and get on with the things that make your family’s life better. That’s how you get even.

I see a lot of people here banking on a huge decline on housing. For some it’s about affordability. Great, that makes sense….Others, it’s about payback (in the bitter,spite kind of way). The issue about the payback folks is that it seems they’re so fixated at the payback, they’re missing everything else that’s going on imho.

Also note, in my experience just sending your kids to private schools alone doesn’t really do diddly. I think what makes a difference is how much you’re involved in your kids’ education. Both my sis and I went to public schools. Although my parents couldn’t afford to us to a private school, my parents cared about my education and self improvement to spend time with me and my sis, enough for us to be able to get into the Ivy’s (which, btw, in itself means diddy too).

On the other hand, a lot of folks that were trust fund babies did whatever the hell they wanted, and pretty much bought their way into everything. They’re probably still doing whatever the hell they want, but a lot of them really turned out screwed up too. Yeah, whatever. I have food, clothing, shelter, transportation, a relatively good family, decent career, and financially sound…and lots of free time to screw around with people on piggington…. 🙂