A widow who owned her Pennsylvania home free and clear is losing her home in a tax foreclosure sale resulting from a payment of her tax balance that was either $6 short or 6 days late, take your pick.

Eileen Battisti's husband, who had always handled the Battisti family's finances, died in 2004, and Eileen evidently struggled with dealing with the bills after that.  The record shows she had a habit of not paying her property taxes on time.  Still, she would eventually attempt to pay the amounts on the tax invoices she received, and the tax laws allowed for this to some extent-- the law did not allow authorities to sell a home to satisfy unpaid taxes until they were more than two years late.  

But despite her attempts to make good on her tax obligations, Eileen's home was sold at a tax foreclosure sale. 

Late payment of her 2008 school taxes are what will cost Eileen her home.  The tax claim bureau in Eileen's county received her tax payment of $897.19 on May 7th, 2009.  That's what Eileen owed in tax, penalties, fees, and interest on her 2008 taxes as of April 30th, 2009.  But on May 1, another $6.30 in interest had been added to the tax bill.  So by the time Eileen's tax payment was received, it didn't quite cover the amount she owed.

In June, the tax claim bureau sent a certified mail notice to Eileen that she still owed $6.30, plus postage and costs, on her 2008 tax bill.  The notice was returned marked unclaimed.  A second certified letter notifying her of the unpaid balance was also returned unclaimed.  Additional notices were sent by regular mail.  These notices were not returned.

In 2010, Eileen paid her 2009 tax-- again late, but in full.  When the tax claim bureau received this payment, it applied all of the funds to the 2009 taxes.  The delinquent amount on the 2008 taxes remained.  In fact, the amount Eileen owed had grown from $6.30 to many times that amount, because of late fees and interest.

In 2011, a notice was posted on Eileen's house that it was going to be sold.  A few weeks later, Eileen's house was sold at a tax sale for collection of the unpaid balance on the 2008 tax, which by now was over $200.  The house was worth over $250,000, but the buyer paid barely over $100,000.  Eileen had no right of redemption after the sale-- in other words, after the sale, she could not pay the tax bill to get her home back.  So, she filed suit in the local common pleas court to have the tax sale set aside.  The purchaser at the tax sale naturally objected-- they had gotten a good deal and were not keen on giving it up easily.

Without benefit of a trial, the common pleas court ruled in favor of the purchaser.  The court concluded that the tax authorities had complied with the proper procedures in terms of notifying Eileen, and Eileen had failed to pay the full amount she owed. 

Eileen appealed, and last year, an appeals court found that the common pleas court had violated Eileen's right to due process by failing to allow her an evidentiary hearing on the matter.  The case was sent back to the common pleas court and the hearing was held.  Eileen claimed she never got any notice of the unpaid balance, and never knew about it until her house was sold and it was too late.  But the court believed other evidence, which indicated that at least two regular mail notices were delivered to Eileen's address.  Furthermore, a notice of the foreclosure sale was posted on her house, yet Eileen took no action.  These notices satisfied the legal prerequisites for a valid tax sale.  The court felt that it had no choice but to affirm the sale.

So for a $6 balance that was 6 days late, a widow will lose her home, unless an appeals court reverses this decision.  She will get the proceeds from the sale (minus the puny tax bill owed), but the amount is a fraction of what the home is worth.