Comment by bluecalm
3 hours ago
>>It seems reasonable to want owning the house you live in to be a possibility for planning to eventually live on a fixed or low income.
One idea here is deferral - if it's your primary residence the taxes are deferred until the property is sold to someone else. This way you won't get evicted but the locality/state can get the payment at some point. This is better than just charging a tax on sale as many countries do because it doesn't discourage transactions.
I would certainly be discouraged from purchasing a property if the price was inflated by having to pay back taxes.
I read the idea as the seller would pay the tax. Not the buyer.
If you see that as inflated due to payback, then it's already inflated due to the yearly tax currently in place. Plus interest.
The the seller is locked in until equity is greater than the back taxes.