Michigan Homeowners’ Tax Foreclosure Suit Denied Class Status

Former property owners who lost their homes to resolve a tax debt and sought the surplus proceeds from the foreclosure sales were denied class certification because individual issues predominate over common ones, a federal court ruled.

To decide who would be an eligible class member, each disputed property’s fair market value would have to be determined to see if it was worth more than the tax delinquency, Judge Paul D. Borman said. Conducting “a series of mini-trials” to figure out each property’s value means that individual issues predominate in this case and would therefore not satisfy the class action qualification ...