St. Clair County rejects claim residents are owed over $380K after foreclosures

St. Clair County rejects six residents’ claim that they are collectively owed more than $380,000 in compensation for the residential and commercial properties they lost in foreclosures when they didn’t pay their taxes.

The residents filed a federal lawsuit in April against St. Clair County and the county tax collector, Treasurer Andrew Lopinot. They say they are owed the difference between their back taxes and what their properties were worth.

Two of the plaintiffs, for example, lost homes estimated to be worth 10 times the cost of their unpaid taxes , according to the lawsuit. They cite a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court decision to support their argument.

Lopinot and the county have asked Chief Judge Nancy J. Rosenstengel to dismiss the suit, according to the response they filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois on Aug. 8.

The defendants say they aren’t liable because they were just following state laws for foreclosures . And they contend the Supreme Court ruling that the property owners rely on from Minnesota doesn’t apply to Illinois because of differences in the two states’ laws.

Rosenstengel has not yet made a ruling on their arguments.

Residents say they’re owed thousands of dollars each

The following are the six plaintiffs in the lawsuit and their arguments for compensation:

• Don Gilliam owed $10,178.20 in back taxes on an East Carondelet home. The estimated fair market value was $112,700. Gilliam is owed over $100,000.

• Shirley Ferrell thought her property taxes were being taken out with her mortgage payments. She owed $7,320.13 in back taxes on an East St. Louis home. The estimated fair market value was $84,708. Ferrell is owed over $75,000.

• Shelly Branson fell behind on paying property taxes in the wake of his wife’s death. Branson owed $14,145 in back taxes on an East St. Louis home. The estimated fair market value was $76,756. Branson is owed over $60,000.

• Top Metal Buyers Inc. operated out of an East St. Louis building. It owed $44,089.58 in back taxes on the property. The estimated fair market value was $102,279. Top Metal Buyers is owed over $55,000.

• Trenise Hill owed $8,964.27 in back taxes on a Cahokia Heights home. The estimated fair market value was $58,200. Hill is owed almost $50,000.

• Debra Mosby owed $14,812.87 in back taxes on an East St. Louis home. The estimated fair market value was $53,607. Mosby is owed over $30,000.

What did the Supreme Court decide about compensation?

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last year that a foreclosure in Minnesota violated the Fifth Amendment, which prohibits the government from taking private property without paying “just compensation” to the property’s owner.

In that case, a condominium owner owed $15,000 in property taxes, so the county seized the property, sold it for $40,000 and kept the $25,000 excess over the tax debt instead of turning it over to the condo owner.

Unlike Minnesota, Illinois offers a way for property owners to recover lost equity after a tax foreclosure, St. Clair County and other county governments in Illinois have argued in response to lawsuits since the Supreme Court ruling.

Every tax buyer pays a fee of no more than $20 that goes into a county indemnity fund, and property owners can apply for compensation from the funds.

The St. Clair County plaintiffs argue indemnity funds aren’t an adequate solution because counties don’t inform property owners that the funds exist, they are “woefully, structurally underfunded,” and they come with restrictions that exclude commercial property owners like Top Metal Buyers. St. Clair County’s recent response did not address those arguments.

The lawsuit is asking the court to treat the case as a class action to potentially include thousands of Illinoisans who lost properties to foreclosure in 2023 or 2022.

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