When the average person buys a home, or a business buys a commercial property or apartment building, they pay what’s called a real estate transfer tax — and so does whoever is selling the place. But not all transfers of property trigger this tax. When city leaders originally designed Oakland’s real estate transfer tax, they decided for a variety of reasons not to apply it to foreclosures.
A foreclosure is when a lender — usually a bank — takes back someone’s property because that person or company has failed to keep up with their mortgage payments.
Earlier this year, the City Council decided to give voters the option to change the transfer tax so that banks and other lenders foreclosing on a property would also be required to pay it. The homeowner who’s being foreclosed on would not have to pay the tax…