Study: Bad assessments prompt 10K Detroit foreclosures
One in 10 Detroit tax foreclosures between 2011 and 2015 were caused by the city's admittedly inflated property assessments, a study by two Chicago professors has concluded.
Over-assessments causing foreclosure were concentrated in the city's lowest valued homes, those selling for less than $8,000, and resulted in thousands of Detroit homeowners losing their properties, according to the study.
"The very population that most needs the city to get the assessments right, the poorest of the poor, are being most detrimentally affected by the city getting it wrong," said Bernadette Atuahene, a law professor at the Chicago-Kent College of Law who has studied the impact of the city's over-assessments on homeowners.
"There is a narrative of blaming the poor that focuses on individual responsibility instead of structural injustice. We are trying to change the focus to this structural injustice."
Read more: https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/2018/06/14/bad-assessments-prompt-detroit-foreclosures/697667002/