joe daniel price/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared sympathetic to the appeal of a 94-year-old Minnesota woman who got no compensation when the government seized her home over a small unpaid tax bill and pocketed the profit.
Many justices suggested the practice, which the plaintiff s lawyers at the Pacific Legal Foundation have termed "home equity theft," could run afoul of the Fifth Amendment s prohibition against government taking private property without "just compensation."
Geraldine Tyler, the plaintiff in the high court case, owed $15,000 in unpaid taxes, interest and penalties in 2015 when Hennepin County, Minnesota, seized her one-bedroom condominium and later sold it for $40,000.
"It goes all the way back to the Magna Carta that the government cannot take more than it s owed," argued Tyler s attorney Christina Martin.
So-called home equity seizure is legal in roughly a dozen states that authorize municipa
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The Supreme Court appeared sympathetic to the appeal of a 94-year-old Minnesota woman challenging the so-called practice of governmental 'home equity theft.'