A Brooklyn house owner has had his absolutely paid-off house offered out from beneath him and his tenants due to a overdue $5,000 water invoice that landed his property on New York Metropolis’s property and water tax lien sale. Now, he and elected officers are combating again.
“That is my life. I don’t don’t have anything [sic] else,” stated Filmore Brown, a 62-year-old Jamaican immigrant and a small enterprise proprietor. He bought his three-story constructing in East Flatbush in 1996 and has since paid off his mortgage in full. He claims that he solely came upon a few month in the past that he had a questionable overdue water invoice from 2019 that had led to the foreclosures and auctioning of his house with out his data.
At a press convention held in entrance of his constructing on August 15, the neighborhood and numerous politicians got here collectively in an try to convey public consciousness to Brown’s case and demand systemic change.
“What the hell is happening? What’s irritating me is that each single avenue that you can imagine appears to be designed to steal the wealth and houses from Black, Brown, and immigrant New Yorkers. With a selected focus on Black householders. That’s only a truth,” stated Public Advocate Jumaane Williams passionately on the convention.
Ariama C. Lengthy photographs
The town’s tax lien sale is a three-decade-old observe. When a property is on the tax lien sale record, it means the proprietor owes excellent property taxes, has constructing code violations, or has water, sewer, and different property-related prices. The town can then promote the debt to a certified purchaser who has the precise to gather what’s owed, opening up householders to predatory debt collectors. Industrial properties might be on the record for one yr, whereas a residential property can rise up to a few years earlier than the town strikes ahead with foreclosures.
The town’s Division of Finance (DOF) is meant to ship householders warning notices at the very least 90, 60, 30, and 10 days respectively earlier than the sale record is posted. Many householders say they find yourself on the record with out being correctly knowledgeable by the DOF or Division of Environmental Safety (DEP) that they owe cash to the town, particularly with regards to unpaid water payments. The 2025 lien sale was held on June 3.
Brown maintains he wasn’t knowledgeable of what was taking place till the supposed new house owners breached the home in the course of the night time, drilled out the locks, and put in surveillance cameras whereas his household and tenants had been awoken from their sleep. Annoyed, Brown stated that if he had identified in regards to the invoice he would have definitely paid it.
“I don’t need this to occur to different individuals. I don’t need them to really feel like how I really feel,” stated Brown.
Housing advocates have lengthy seen the tax lien sale as a harbinger of foreclosures for a lot of Black and Brown householders, and have forcefully referred to as for its abolition.
“What’s additionally a truth, if this was not taking place to Black, Brown, immigrant, householders in New York, we wouldn’t have a rattling downside within the first place. All the things can be fastened,” continued Williams. “And also you permit somebody to return in like a thief in an evening to attempt to break into his house. One thing is incorrect.”
Alice Nicholson, Brown’s legal professional, stated {that a} foreclosures case was initiated in 2020 through the pandemic shutdowns, when courts had been working beneath extreme restrictions. The courtroom granted a default judgment in 2021 and a remaining judgment in 2023 with out Brown’s data. This paved the way in which for the property to be offered with no formal eviction continuing at a foreclosures public sale in 2024. In late July 2025, the courtroom denied a keep request to pause the foreclosures enforcement.
“This was one invoice that fell by way of the cracks,” stated Alice Nicholson, Esq., Brown’s legal professional. “After that is offered to the New York Metropolis tax lien belief, there’s no connection of that invoice to the opposite payments within the DOF system. So the house owner doesn’t know that there’s one other invoice on the market that’s accumulating curiosity at 18% a day.”
At current, Brown and his tenants are nonetheless bodily within the house and haven’t been put out but. The brand new house owners are demanding they begin paying hire. She stated the authorized staff is targeted on the difficulty of lien notices Brown stated he didn’t obtain, a foreclosures discover he wasn’t served, and that usually solely a marshall can come to a property and alter locks –– not the brand new house owners.
“This can be a accountable man. He paid off his mortgage, he pays his payments,” stated Nicholson. “There’s one thing incorrect with the system that’s not notifying the individuals within the state of affairs.”
A coalition of Brooklyn elected officers had been on the press convention demanding solutions and instant intervention on Brown’s behalf, together with Williams, Assemblymember Monique Chandler-Waterman, Councilmember Chris Banks, and Senator Roxanne J. Persaud.
“This can be a private matter. Our Black and Brown communities have carried the cities on their backs,” stated Chandler-Waterman. “They’ve endured purple lining, housing discrimination, disinvestment, and now gentrification and compelled displacement. Sufficient is sufficient.”
Chandler-Waterman stated she’s partnered with neighborhood organizations like Brooklyn Stage Up
and Neighborhood Housing Companies (NHS) of Brooklyn, to go door-to-door canvassing and alerting householders in regards to the lien gross sales and providing housing sources. She is demanding a cease to the lien sale course of to permit for reforms, a right away public listening to and investigation into Brown’s case, and is planning laws on the state stage to take away water payments from the tax lien sale course of.
“We won’t relaxation till we resolve this and maintain each culpable celebration accountable. Reverse this unlawful foreclosures, and make sure that Mr. Brown and his household have their house returned and it by no means, by no means occurs once more,” stated Banks. “This can be a systematic failure and appears to be a systemic assault on creating generational wealth in our communities.”
Banks is looking for a moratorium on the tax lien sale, the elimination of the water payments as a tax lien sale legal responsibility, and intends to introduce metropolis laws to enhance the notification process.
