biran is right, there are a lot of misunderstanding about property taxes. For example, lets say you have a house you bought for 100k in 1980, over time, with the mild increase allowed under prop 13 you are paying taxes on about 150k, yet your place is worth 700k. If you do a permitted kithen remodel for 30k, they don’t reset you to todays market value, they just tack on the 30k to the 150k, and the place is now taxed at 180k, still way below market. Now jp’s point, if it repos and is taken back by the bank, the new owner will get it for , lets say 500k, which might be below market but well above what the taxes were, so the local gov’t collects more. Local government wouldn’t be in bad shape if property taxes were their only source of income, but their sales tax revenue is off. Even still they would be fine, but the state keeps “borrowing” money from the locals, forcibly. San Diego would have been fine had it not been for the state’s woes.
Another point is that all the unpaid taxes because of the repo process taking so long and escrow accounts not paying the taxes, yet banks not taking the houses back, the local gov’t will eventually get it’s taxes, they don’t write that off, they hold up any transfer, refi, sale or whatever, until they get paid, with penalities. Rest assured, death and taxes are guaranteed.
