Each year, Maryland municipalities seek to recoup unpaid taxes from property owners through a tax sale. If overdue property taxes are not paid, liens are issued by the city and sold to investors, who can make a lot of money collecting the debt, fees, and interest from the property owner.

Eventually, property owners risk losing their homes to foreclosure if they cannot pay the debts.

Housing advocates are critical of the tax sale, calling it a predatory system that harms Maryland homeowners and renters and disproportionately impacts majority-Black neighborhoods.

Allison Harris is Director of the Home Preservation Project for the Maryland Pro Bono Resource Center. The center provides free legal help for those facing tax sale, including several in-person tax sale clinics over the next month.

More information on the PBRC's services, including in-person tax sale clinics and phone consultation, on their website.

(Bohemian Baltimore, via Wikimedia Commons. License: CC BY-SA 4.0)

Each year, Maryland municipalities seek to recoup unpaid taxes from property owners through a tax sale. If overdue property taxes are not paid, liens are issued by the city and sold to investors, who can make a lot of money collecting the debt, fees, and interest from the property owner.
Eventually, property owners risk losing their homes to foreclosure if they cannot pay the debts.
Housing advocates are critical of the tax sale, calling it a predatory system that harms Maryland homeowners and renters and disproportionately impacts majority-Black neighborhoods.
Allison Harris is Director of the Home Preservation Project for the <a href="https://probonomd.org/">Maryland Pro Bono Resource Center</a>. The center provides free legal help for those facing tax sale, including several in-person tax sale clinics over the next month.
More information on the PBRC's services, including in-person tax sale clinics and phone consultation, <a href="https://probonomd.org/for-legal-help/help-for-homeowners/">on their website</a>.
(Bohemian Baltimore, via Wikimedia Commons. License: <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en">CC BY-SA 4.0</a>)

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Catch On the Record, hosted by Sheilah Kast, weekdays from 9:30 to 10:00 am, following NPR's Morning Edition. We'll discuss the issues that affect your life and bring you thoughtful and lively conversations with the people who shape those issues -- business people, public officials, scholars, artists, authors, WYPR reporters and other journalists who can take us inside the story. If you want to share a comment, question, or an idea for an interview you'd like to hear, email us at <a href="mailto:ontherecord@wypr.org">ontherecord@wypr.org</a>

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