When property owners fall behind on paying property taxes, local governments can foreclose on their properties and sell them to recover the unpaid taxes. In many cases, the properties are sold for more than the amount owed—but instead of returning the extra money (the “surplus”) to the former owners, some counties have been keeping it. In Tyler v. Hennepin County, the U.S. Supreme Court held that this practice is an unconstitutional taking of private property. This practice has deprived many property owners of not only their homes, but also the equity they spent years building. Kohn Swift & Graf is working to change that.

The firm has filed lawsuits in Oregon and New York to recover the surpluses. In Oregon, two class-action lawsuits—Lynch et al. v. Multnomah County et al. and Sawyer et al. v. Marion County et al.—allege that counties violated the Oregon and U.S. Constitutions by retaining proceeds well beyond what the property owner owed in back taxes. In New York, the case Merckx et al. v. Rensselaer County et al. challenges similar conduct by local governments that seized homes, sold the properties, and kept surpluses.