Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Speaker 0]: Verified secure real property transactor.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Good afternoon once again. Welcome back to the Senate Committee on Government Operations meeting of Tuesday, 02/17/2026. Our next item up for Considuration is S one ninety two, which is an act relating to municipal authority to compel the cleaning of or repairs the premises. We have both the sponsor of the bill, senator Clarkson, and legislative counsel, Doctor. Henderson. So I don't know. Do you have a time constraint of any sort? I do not. So why don't we have Alison go through her reasons for this and sort

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: of Well, kind of tee it

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: the reason for this is close to Tanya and mine in Tucker's heart, which is the Springfield Charter. And the Springfield Charter enabled this I forgot to doctor, it's just working. Enabled the town the city of Springfield to address several properties that were lighted, vacant, noncoastal and a mass. And because for a variety of reasons, it affects our grand list, it affects our neighborhood morale, it affects the health and safety of the community, and other other towns have approached and asked if we could roll it out statewide. So that is the really, that's what this does. It expands. It takes the the opportunity we created in the Springfield Charter and enables it for all towns to do.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: How long ago did we do the Springfield Charter?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: September 2022,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: she was sold in the house.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Alright.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yes. Wanna be clear that we we share thoughts on this issue, but they don't necessarily belong. Which

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: is often the case. So

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I would've been in this committee in

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: 2020. Dealt with this.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I don't remember it, but I'm sure

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I do.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Did I vote?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Do you do you remember which way I voted?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I don't. I think

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: you it. We can go back and look.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: It was

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: the Springfield Charter.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And this bill,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: when This piece 92. This piece out. Mirrored on that. Yes. And enables it for all towns. Okay. I think Tucker will tell us what it it enables.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: If you'd like to join us at the table, sir.

[Speaker 0]: Good afternoon, Tucker. This is the Landed Council. Here to talk about s one ninety two upfront for the artificial intelligence transcribes all of these meetings when senator Clarkson said that it was near and dear to my heart. She was talking about the tension between the two GOV ops committees. Correct. Tremendous amount of work for legislative no. Aged me several years in the process of Oh, no. Few weeks negotiation.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: This is correct. Although, I will point out that you do not yet have a white hair on your head.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. It's a wonderful gift. I am right from the fountain of my grandmother's farm when I was a child. I am truly everlasting.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Oh, and goes that farm here or in the mother country.

[Speaker 0]: It's sand the mother country of Sandusfield, Massachusetts. And they spring well out in the woods that my grandfather dug when he was your age, my

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: age, or younger. Right. Exactly. Okay. So on that note.

[Speaker 0]: On that note, Senator Clarkson gave you some of the background. S one ninety two is modeled off existing authority in the town of Springfield Charter with a few modifications that I could point out as we go along. If you would like to take a look at the Springfield Charter provisions at some point, I can share them with you. The language in the Springfield Charter is a bit more general than what you see here. There's one operative provision within s one ninety two, but don't get too excited because even though it's basically one page of text, it's going to take a while to tease out some of the legal issues that are raised by the authority that's being granted here. So, to start, this is the first time this committee has taken a look at this section at 24 BSA section two thousand two ninety one. These are the enumerated police powers of municipalities. This is the consolidated list of power, specifically legislative power, that the General Assembly has given to any municipal corporation in the state. So the way that twenty two ninety one operates is that by passage of any bill granting authority within this section, you have already delegated authority to all municipal corporations and states to adopt an ordinance on this subject. So this does mandate that this would take place in a municipality, but you have affirmatively granted them the ability to adopt an ordinance governing the subdivision. Now, the authority some of the authority in here to compel a linear repair of a premises already exists in 2291. This expands that authority. So within Subdivision 13 in 2291, the top of page two, first, some language is moved around here, states that to establish there's the authority to establish health and safety standards for premises within the municipality, and to compel the cleaning or repair of any premises that the legislative body determines to be vacant, blighted, or damaging to the general appearance of the municipality. Now, these terms within the four corners of this delegation of authority are not defined, and one of the things that I point out every time we talk about any piece of law affecting property is that property law, by and large, is backed by centuries of common law. Decisions from courts, not only in The United States, but our predecessors in England. And British common law also applies here in how the states are So if the committee pursues this, certainly, you may want your testimony about what would qualify as vacant formal ID. And since you are granting the entirety of your authority around these two subjects, how could a municipal corporation define those two terms within the understanding of both statute and common law. Finally, damaging to the general appearance of the municipality, that is part of the authority that you granted the town of Springfield in their charter. Right. Senator Vyhovsky?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I believe that was primary part of the tension that you may recall, Tucker, was that language. But I also we heard from a different legislative council attorney on a different issue, but it was the definition of vacant and the constitutionality Mhmm. Taking over someone's proper reasons that sort of squishy idea of what is vacant. Yes.

[Speaker 0]: And when we're done walking through the language, one of the background issues that I'll talk to you about is and how taggings analysis will have to be conducted either before this moves or afterwards by the individual municipal corporations that are adopting ordinances. And senator White is already Columbus. So familiar with this from the discussion about trails, but due to some recent US Supreme Court decisions, you could have an immediate regulatory taking just from granting the authority of a state or municipal officer to enter a property where it is not found in the background common law purposes for which a state governmental actor would enter property in the first place because you're taking away the right of property owner to exclude, which is part of the bundle of rights that all property owners sold.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: It's Senator Morley. The 1381, I'm gonna tell you, Bonnie, the terms of the vacant point in, sort of the hopes we discussed, because it's vacant, damaging to the general appearance of the skull. I don't know how anyone what does that mean?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Does that mean I don't like your red door?

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Exactly. In

[Speaker 0]: order to avoid other constitutional obstacles, the municipal corporation would likely have to define the standards for each of these terms and then, in the enforcement of the ordinance, determine whether the individual property has violated whatever those standards are. You do not have to delegate this level of authority and discretion to municipal corporations. You can certainly define all of these terms within the four corners of the bill if that's how you choose to proceed.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Right.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. That one phrase has got a whole lot of stuff in it. Once you unpack vacant blood or damaging to the general appearance.

[Speaker 0]: You have not talked about the term blighted. It appears in one other body of law in Vermont law. We already have. Urban renewal statutes, but the background definition of what constitutes blighted state by state varies pretty significantly. So I can provide you

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: with Good. I think senator White has I was gonna first.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: Yeah. Thank you, mister chair. So can I just understand? So, yeah, we spent a lot of time on trails as in this conversation. And what's confusing me about this language is I thought you couldn't go onto a property as a municipality for really, like, any kind of maintenance purposes? Like, wasn't that the whole debate? Was even if it was legally owned by the town already in some convoluted ancient roads way, they couldn't maintain Without building. To a degree. So I'm just wondering, we had a we had a long conversation in Senate Transportation about this because even the maintenance of a trail using a a chainsaw to move a tree was considered potentially a problem. And I feel like if what what are the what makes me worried is, okay, if someone cuts down a tree on a property even, you know, if it's vacant or blazed because it's falling into it. Like, we had a lot of issues with doing that on not land that someone was living on. So I guess if you

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: could just tell me a

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: little bit more about there was, like, a threshold of when you were damaging the property.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: The property, the underlying ownership.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: This has been less.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Grow. It's different.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: Sorry. That's the underlying We're exhausted.

[Speaker 0]: We're gonna have so much fun here. So to to start parsing some of this out, there are within the police power of the state, there are definitely reasons and the ability that state actors, municipal actors can enter property.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Okay.

[Speaker 0]: Okay? So just as kind of background information, typically it's to prevent injuries, hazards to the public. So if you were to take Vermont's tree warden statutes as an example, the tree wardens have authority to trim trees that would cause hazards to the public or hazards to a public way. Right? So within a certain distance of the town road, the tree warden has authority to identify a disease or hazardous tree and cut it down. Leave the lumber for the property owner because otherwise you would be taking the property, but you have the ability to enter the property to do that. Similarly, you could have criminal enforcement under a warrant entering property there. Depending on the use of the property and the type of license that might be associated with it, you could have conditions on a license, constitutional conditions. We'll talk about unconstitutional conditions on licenses at a different time to enter property for purposes of inspection. An example would be liquor licenses. So lots of decisions around the time immediately following prohibition where the state control agencies entered property to check inventories of alcoholic beverages, and it was a condition of the license issued to those particular businesses that the state be able to, in order to protect the public, adequately ensure that the inventories kept at those license establishments were accurate. So just a few examples. You are correct, Senator Clarkson, that in the context that trails the discussion was about the fact that the municipal corporations already owned and interested properties. The debate was whether the bill at that time was granting additional rights to the municipal corporation that they did not hold under the terms of their easement, and if they were granted those rights, would it be automatically a taken from the underlying B Simple product? It must be compensated in order to meet constitutional requirements. Now here, the existing delegation of municipal corporations allows them to enter the property to compel cleaning or repair under certain circumstances where there might be injury to other properties in the vicinity or where it creates a hazard to the health and safety of the public. Right. Similar issues here. So, I'm sorry?

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: Can I just ask, so then, is there a chance with this bill that the town would ultimately have to compensate if there was something that was changed, that was

[Speaker 0]: Ample Court were to find that a taking took place? Yes.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Okay. That's we yeah. That's a that's another

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: area. Kurovsky.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: So, like, I've got two things. I'm gonna circle back to the tree warden. The tree warden can't cut the tree down because they think it's ugly or because it doesn't match the rest of the trees in town. Correct?

[Speaker 0]: There is some interesting language in the title 19 provisions relating to tree wardens about offensive offensive material is what's used, and there was question at the time about whether that included, like, plants that just don't look good in Like, the purple loosestrife is on your property, and the state is gonna come in and cut down everything within 10 feet of the road or your house.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: And was that deemed to be acceptable? It

[Speaker 0]: certainly passed, and I can point you

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: to those who have a concern.

[Speaker 0]: Right. Don't know if it's ever been attempted or changed.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Okay. My other question is around, you know, you had mentioned instances in which the state might enter to prevent injury. Mhmm. What how do we define injury? Is that a physical injury? Is that you hurt my feelings? Is that that makes my eyes bleed because I think it's ugly?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: It kept the lab. I believe it's economic all with Springfield,

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: it was both economic and if it's another point of tension,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: but one that's very real. We have this is a long So there's gonna be a entries we're talking about here.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Tough. Fire.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: No fire.

[Speaker 0]: Fire is the best example that I can give you. You had a building that did not meet the fire code and was from a building inspector or fire safety inspector's perspective dangerous to all of the other buildings about it because it poses a serious risk of fire. The state could enter to abate whatever that risk is. And you'll know if you were to go through title 24 that a lot of the provisions where this authority is delegated to municipalities, the fire inspector, fire chief is one of the parties who can exercise some of this authority.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Okay. And and that but that makes perfect sense. Fire we are protecting the whole town. We've heard stories throughout history of

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Mhmm.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Big fires. Yes. All of the And we don't want that. I I guess, you know, when we start thinking about injury without sort of physical injury or that threat of, you know, like, economic injury, does that mean that I can call the town and be like, hey. This poor person next to me is bringing down my property value. Go do something about it. Like, what does that mean?

[Speaker 0]: I this almost this exact line of questioning came up in the context of the Springfield Charter.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I I remember.

[Speaker 0]: The answer is within the four corners of the proposal here, you're delegating authority. That could certainly be part of what municipality it helps under this. If you want to constrain it, you may do so. And I can draft you language that would let that happen. So the language that it passed out of the house gob ops, I recall, was very specific to attach a physical injury, the risk of physical injury as part of, you know, the constraints around the civil rights.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: And Felicia might have drafted that amendment for me when I was on House Bill Ops.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: So

[Speaker 0]: Yes. And I believe the example that you used in representative Hickley doubled down on was porches that had refrigerators. Had an old refrigerator or a dishwasher on my front porch in town, pick it up, take it away, and hand me a bill.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Papa. I lose so this was a

[Speaker 0]: a

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: deeply contested thing. Girl, I was there. I forgot that example, though.

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: That was we were on

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: how much we were on us.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: But I still was next to Christy Morris.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So let me suggest we

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Oh, shouldn't I feel that going back. I think that was gonna suggest the same thing. Oh. Because I think that's a good idea because then we could discuss. As

[Speaker 0]: you're here. Well, enrollment at two, we get to may injure other property in the vicinity. Right now, nonconstrained to physical injury, so you're considering all forms of injury. Black's Law definition does include financial injury as well. Or is dangerous to the health or safety of the public. Subdivision B, grant the authority to control the removal of rubbish, waste, and objectionable material from any premises that is subject to its subdivision. That means controlling the way that some of this material is removed from a property where there is the cupel cleaning or repair. The context for this portion of the Springfield Charter, when it came up, was discussion around lead abatement and whether simply reaching out to a property owner and saying that you have to abate the property and there's lead there. Could the municipality, in this case, the town of Springfield, dictate the way that the property would be cleaned so it's not to cause lead contamination in the process?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Did you have

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Thank you. And that is if there's any type of definition of rubbish waste or objectionable material, who gets to determine what is waste? Who gets to determine what is objectionable?

[Speaker 0]: So both of the first two terms, rubbish and waste, are defined in title 24, under rubbish and waste statutes that I can point you to That would be lovely. Along with

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay.

[Speaker 0]: Alright, subdivision C, to clean or repair any premises that been subject to this subdivision and recover all expenses incident to the cleaning or repair. Expenses that are occurred under the subdivision constitute a lien on the property in the same manner and to the same extent as taxes assessed on the rank list.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: So does that mean that if the town forces the cleanup or change of something and assesses the value and the person can't pay it, could be subject to like a tax sale? Yes.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Senator Correct. Morley. This his, this bill scares me more and more, Alison, I said. But

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: this is now law in Springfield. I know. And it

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: should be.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: They're very happy with it.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: So, like, when the local municipals currently tuck or create ordinances, we have like a zoning officer or official, and then most of the penalties are civil. This brings it to a whole different level. Am I right in saying that?

[Speaker 0]: I'm so glad that you raised this. So first of all, set aside bylaws entirely. They're governed by a separate body of law and have no association with very few exceptions, with the police powers exercise of twenty nineteen-ninety one. But you are correct that under 24 BSA section nineteen-seventy one, municipalities must choose whether their ordinances are civil or criminal, or they may not be both. Right. Now, under these circumstances, it doesn't seem likely that this would be enforced as a criminal ordinance, there are, when an ordinance is adopted, if there will be civil penalties that are imposed, a maximum penalty of $800 This is a totally separate piece of authority in that the penalty that could be imposed is the repayment or reimbursement of the cost of the payer. Okay,

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Village Of Orleans as an example, in tax sale, for nonpayment of electric water, wastewater, and now property tax, obviously, and now if this passes this, and would you be then adding the 8% Penalty. Penalty?

[Speaker 0]: On for its delinquent. I would have to go back and check the delinquent property tax statutes to see whether the language is expansive enough to include

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: unpaved penalties. Perhaps.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Senator Clarkson? Their taxes could be current here. They the taxes could be current. They could just And they could still sell your home. No. I can't do that. But the taxes could be current here. I mean, it it this is envisioning a a problematic property, which all of our towns deal with. I mean, we all have heard about these kinds of properties. So this is not don't be so you know, everyone being so shocked. This is not so shocking. We have lots of properties that are very challenging from a health and safety point of view, from a firming and garbage and of view that are vacant. So, I think we could do to defining some of these things because vacant and blighted are both defined, I think, in the VHIP statutes too, aren't they, in the housing statutes? Because they we went through this when we when we created VHIP, Vermont Housing Improvement Program. And it's vacant, blighted or non code compliant properties that it applies to. I think

[Speaker 0]: we have those definitions. I would have to double check on that. I recall that when S-one 181 was passing through this committee that both an individual over my left hand shoulder and perhaps the Vermont Bar Association pointed out that the, vacant status is very fungible under the law, and understanding what would constitute a vacancy would have to be very specifically defined or to be consistently and equally enforced. And the question that I remember Jeff had asking Right. The record was what happens if the property owner shows up one day before the plan enforcement, turns off the lights for twenty five minutes, runs a band saw, leaves. Oh, that property no longer vacant? It's an interesting question.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: And I think we've heard from them that Attorney Wood, who does the health care housing for both, that there is no firm definition of either of those terms.

[Speaker 0]: That is correct. Although you currently have a body of law around urban renewal that does include eminent domain proceedings for purposes of abating lighted sections of the eighteenth.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. So I think, again, just to move this along a little bit, line 16, I think we're in. Yes.

[Speaker 0]: All procedures and remedies for the collection of taxes apply prior to incurring any expenses. The town, city, or incorporated bill shall adopt the rules governing the concussed cleaning or repair, including provisions for an administrative appeals process and notice pursuant to 32 BSA fifty two fifty two a three. In order to technically correct a cross reference in a later subdivision in this section. I unintentionally included other authority that a municipal corporation has. So if you wanna look at some of the authority that already exists in law for determining that a building, for example, is uninhabitable and must be prepared. That is in Subdivision 24 of the same section. And it has the same authority to force through eventually, all the way down the line after many years, potentially attacks health care. And

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: then there's a cross reference to line 13 on page three.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. That's the cleanup that I was talking about.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. And the effective date. Well, this is not a simple little bill. Oh. No.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Alison's here. What?

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: I love it. You've had two bills in the last two days, but I think on this topic, you have received less than for both support. But you've you've held through, and you've made your case. And I think even if we don't take these up, I appreciate that we've had to

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: No. No. It's fine. And I'd love to know how Springfield's dealing with

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: I think we need to hear from Springfield. I think we need to hear from VLCT and other cities who want to deal with this problem, and we need to give them tools on how to deal with these properties. It is not fair for other people. So this goes back to a utilitarian point of view. Should one person, or even an abandoned property, be able to impact a whole neighborhood, other people's values, other people's health and safety, other people's physical safety, is that fair? I don't think that helps the common good. I don't think it helps our cities and towns be proud of themselves. I think neighborhoods really, this this can be a very corrosive experience for a neighborhood. I have lived it in Springfield because we have so many of these properties in Springfield. We have so many of these properties in Rock. We have a couple of them in Woodstock. We have them in every one of the towns we represent. And so I think to give towns a tool that they can use, they can choose to adopt this. They don't have to adopt it. We can make it better. But I think we need to give our towns the opportunity to address these properties, which are having such big impact on our val on our on our neighbors, on the health and safety of our neighborhoods, and on property values in our towns. Senator Monks? So,

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: hypothetically, I own a building in Springfield, and it's not looking all good. I owe $200,000 on it, mortgage, and they decide, hey, you haven't been, it doesn't look right, or it's dilapidated, hard if the wall might be starting to fall in or something like that. I'm guessing if we put a clean it up and the owner doesn't pay, then there's Can you put a lien on that as well? And then my other question is if we don't put the lien, we go straight to tax sale, usually, typically what my experience is, the mortgage company will pay because they don't wanna lose title. Right. Basically, what I think normally happens in my

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: You're not.

[Speaker 0]: All of the steps that you just went through sounded accurate. What I will point out is that under that Title 32 process that can end in a tax sale, as soon as you have unpaid taxes at the local level, they constitute a lien. They are deemed by law a lien on the property, and those liens specifically for unpaid taxes take priority.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Right? Yeah, they're first out.

[Speaker 0]: They're first out. They're first paid. And under the tax sale procedures, there are parties, there are creditors who do not control the amount that the property might be sold for. So there might be, as a result of the sale, unsatisfied subordinated creditors down the line.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Senator Rutland District.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I would want to hear from people whose homes have been compelled to be cleaned and not just from the people who might be offended by the way their home looks, because I am continuing and this was not gonna pose a threat to you, to have deep concerns about the impact this has on our growing population of people who cannot afford to do the maintenance that someone in a privileged position thinks they should.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: I think you're being caught up on the general appearance piece. This is really about vacant and blended properties. I would say it's easy to make fun of the general appearance issue. But I think that the the hazardous, vacant, lighted properties are the ones we're talking about. General appearance, I know that sounds like but every most of our towns have design review boards, and they're worse. They are worse because they talk about shutters. I mean, I had a whole legal ban on Woodstock about a house that didn't wanna put shutters on, and design review insisted they put shutters on. Yes. So there's general appearance. I I would say that that is a side issue. I would say that there are some serious issues that affect towns and neighborhoods that are worth considering here. General parents may you know, that to me, that's a sort of deflects the importance of what we're really talking about here. I

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: appreciate that, and I still think that if someone cannot afford the maintenance on their home yes. If it's gonna burn this the town down, like, let's figure that out. But if someone cannot afford to peel the paint as as frequently or we should not be penalizing them and putting them in a position where they may lose their home.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: I I don't think that's what this is about. This is about homes that don't have anybody living in But it

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: will and and if there is a way to draft that that we are sure, maybe I could come along to something like that. But there is no definition of vacant. Like, is it I I mean, I'm looking at law now and under the arsons arson laws, it's vacant if someone's not there.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Like We can do a better job than that.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I mean, that's very intentionally written that way because the penalty is different if you burn someone's house down with them in it versus not with them in it. Mhmm. But if you look through different aspects of our own law as it comes to housing, we define vacancy very differently. And if we are not defining it for purposes of this bill, do I say, oh, they're not home today, so I'm gonna compel the like Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Not home today is not vacant. It is based in some of our laws. Not in terms of most of the understanding of the laws that I've been involved in passing like they have. And and I think if if vacant and whited are not yet defined, Tucker, we should define them. I think that it's my time because we have so many other laws that are actually based on things that's whited and non government wide. So it's I think we could do that with this. I think that it's it's an opportunity for us to address a very real need in our towns. And we can have the towns come in. I'd love to have Springfield come and talk about how it's rolled out. But, you know, I we represent 25 towns. I could get probably all 25 of them to come and talk about the properties that they have, they would love to be able to take action on and that they can't. Okay.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I'm getting the sense that the committee would at least be willing to take this up again next week and maybe I'm misreading the room.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: I would urge us to I think it's a real issue, and if you don't think it is, talk to VLCT. I think that there are a lot of town managers who would love to be able to deal with properties they can't deal with right now. Well, you guys go do we could go do our homework. I've done the homework. Look, I've got enough towns asked me to put this in. Say, oh, you know what? You did in Springfield. Was really good. We would really appreciate that opportunity.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Let me ask you another way. Would there be appetite for changing this in some way to get it to a point where we would be able to at least continue to talk about it? If we took general appearance out, if we modified it in some direction I mean, if if the committee doesn't wanna take it out, then we can not pick it up. But just

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Okay. Senator Vyhovsky.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: Well, I was gonna say, so right now, I understood from the start of what Tucker said. They can pass an ordinance now to do this. Right? Individual towns?

[Speaker 0]: Less authority, but, yes, this Okay.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: We would give them.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: So they but they could if if one of our towns, let's say, North's I don't know. West Windsor decided they wanted to do this, they could pass an ordinance that's close to this?

[Speaker 0]: Right now, the municipality could adopt Nords to compel the cleaning or repair of any premises that in the judgment of the legislative body is dangerous to the health or safety of the public, and they can establish health and safety standards and premises within the municipality in order to protect the public or prevent physical injury to other properties if the that Yeah. Existing store.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: So I guess my main

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: point is clarify that because why then if it's in a charter so we dealt with this in a charter change. Yes. So what's the difference between the right to of being able to do an ordinance now and those towns that have charters? So why did we have to deal with this in a charter versus Springfield just doing it?

[Speaker 0]: Springfield's authority is broader, and s one ninety two is broader. But, of course, what is in current law because it is That's his law. So that won't allow

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: as much flesh here. It it This bill is fairly, fairly broad. It allows the viscount to tighten up. Should they want to with any can they tighten it up with this or no? Well, gives them The local

[Speaker 0]: It gives them broader authority.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: It gives them broader authority. It

[Speaker 0]: adds it to the scope of properties that could be captured by this authority.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Senator Ryhovsky?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I think the current laws, Commissioner.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Yeah,

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: I guess I would say if we're going I think we have limited time, and we have some other priorities we may want to focus on, And so I think if we're going to hear testimony, what I've already heard is it would be weighted. I would love to hear I too would love to hear from the Front League of States and towns and from our local communities and others. But I guess I'm just worried that the time the cost of doing that to the potential movement of some other priorities. So I if we have the availability and time, yes. I'm happy to, especially since this is a spring field related issue.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Let's Well, what does John say? What do you think? I'm a manager. You're a town manager.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: I've never So as a manager, I would like it because it would help me do certain things. But that being said, I don't wanna tram I don't wanna I don't wanna trample someone. Don't want to take away individual private ownership rights either. Currently, we have junk ordinances you know, where that's defined what junk is, like someone asked earlier, how many cars can be on the property, but it's everything that we're doing is civil. So I think that we're addressing it to a certain degree. As Tucker said, this is broader, and what the part that I guess that concerns, that really concerns you most is I've never seen it put in as, that becomes a delicate task. So if you went in and you cleaned, you did all the stuff, whatever the costs are associated with it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Passed on to the owner.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: If there isn't. Oh, there's always an owner.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Well, mean, or if

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: the owner have

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Yeah.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: And that's where some of the rub is for me, Alison. I've never quite seen anything like that before. Well,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: you live to rich the Morley. Yeah. Okay.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: One last comment. Sandra,

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: how many municipalities are using the authority they have now to solve for health or

[Speaker 0]: dangerousness? It's a great question. It sounds like research that I would love to do.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Because I I feel like if we are if there's already an authority, perhaps we need to encourage municipalities to use it before we broaden something so much that we're selling people's homes at tax so that they're too far to maintain them?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So I don't wanna suggest this. The committee will meet and decide which path to take kind

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: of thing. Mull it over?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah. That's a very good expression. Mull it over. If we decide to go forward with Firebee next week

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: I I would ask, as a committee member, I would ask that we have one more period of testimony with some of the key players and who can answer some of those questions is how is this used? Did this what does VLCT think? And and I'd love to hear from the founder of Springfield. I don't think it has to leave this committee as it is drafted, but it is our issues. You know.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Yes. I don't have problem hearing this from the LCC.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: So if we gave it just another hour, hour and a half, I would just be be delighted to understand both how it's working in Springfield. Is this a problem with our other two fifty one or two fifty two towns? I mean, I know it is because heard them. But and and see what we could do to make it I also know there are other members of my housing committee who would love to be able to have eminent domain on houses exactly like this and that we could exercise. And for me, I'd also love to clarify why can't we use eminent domain now on problem properties if they are that

[Speaker 0]: problematic. But Would be happy to look into eminent domain for you and probably pass that along to the capable, diligent, excellent attorney, Karen Wood.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Who just happens to have your balance.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Somehow, I think he knew that.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Some instances, you could use eminent domain in these instances. So, again, I think maybe our municipalities need to

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: have better Yeah. But it's are available to them. It's very challenging.

[Speaker 0]: Yeah. It's challenging. It's expensive. Condemnation and M and W proceedings can take it for them alongside. Yeah, all. It's

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: so more to come? Yes.

[Speaker 0]: Thanks, Tucker. Thank you. You're welcome.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Let's move to our final agenda item, S196. We had a lot of testimony on this. I think it was Friday. Oh, another popular bill. And

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Yeah, we put them

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: back to back for you.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: I'm in the nineties. You notice all my bills are does

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: anyone feel a need to talk to Cameron Wood at all?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: There he goes.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: If not, we can move to the other witnesses, or if you have additional information? No, sir.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: I do not. None at this time,

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: and that would be great because I have to leave you in about fifteen minutes.

[Speaker 0]: Okay.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: So I just wanted

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: to So let's You have

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: to have Chris I wanted to be here for as long as I could, but I'm

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: I'm sundered to another committee around that time.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So we're joined by Chris Delia, who's president of the Bankers Association. We'll hear from Kevin O'Toole, an attorney from Thorson, and we're also gonna hear from Vermont Legal Aid on this bill. So Chris, welcome. I think

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: you know everybody. I do. Good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and Thank you for the opportunity to come in and testify on S-one 196. For the record, Christina, your president from our bankers association and participant in the study group that worked on property tax sales a couple of years ago. Fascinating discussion on January. There's a little bit of blending here, but I'm gonna just focus on the property tax sale piece. And I will share with you my thoughts about what you have in this bill. Number one, I think there would be opposition to going from a year to six months on the redemption period. All six of us sitting around this table could come up with a different view of the world on what's vacant, on what's blighted, what's in disrepair, etcetera, that was a big part of the discussion that we had in the working group. And just because I'm in the hospital for six months doing rehab doesn't mean that my property is vacant, even though the lights are not on ever. Or I go to Florida or someplace else, it doesn't mean that it's vacant. These were the challenges that our working group discussed and really could not reconcile. So when you're talking about going in a tax sale and you have to understand how the tax sale works, you go to the tax sale and the successful bidder is the successful bidder, period. They don't own the property. The people who own the property are the ones that were delinquent on the taxes. It is a policy question, but I would suggest you tread lightly on a policy that allows a municipal entity or a successful bidder to go into a property that somebody is living in to make improvements because it may be exposed to the elements or looks dilapidated. As a property owner, I would say, what right do you have to go into my property? Because I may redeem it ten And months from if you go in and you make the improvements to that property, what happens to the cost of the improvements? Well, if there's a mortgage, kind of crossing the lines on 01/1992, when we dealt with it in Springfield and I'm dealing with it in S six ninety six in gun box in the house, You're now going to take, whether it's fines or penalties, or whatever the cost is to secure that property and pick a number, dollars 20,000, dollars 30,000 because it's not clearly defined like we understand property taxes to be, all of a sudden that's sitting in front of a mortgage. I will tell you we have a problem with the secondary market. I will tell you even if they bought those mortgages, they will ask the banks to indemnify them associated with those losses. That will have a problem for my lenders. Now, they may say, we'll still make loans out there, but the underwriting is gonna change and the cost will change for that loan. Springfield is a unique case. I agree with you, hear from Springfield. But there is no way that I would ever sit in a witness chair not argue against those fines and penalties sitting in front of a mortgage. Secondary market is used to property taxes, they're used to water, etcetera. Those are known entities today. So when I look at 01/1996, I think you've got some real challenges there. One with the redemption period, exposure and deterioration of subjective items that you're gonna have to really wrestle with and find consensus on. Ownership of the property, ownership doesn't transfer until that deed is issued to that successful bidder, or it could be the town ultimately because the property owner isn't able to pay off the debt. Why they're vacant? And then, again, I've already discussed the priority in front of mortgage. So I I I understand what you're trying to do because I I know senator Hooker. I've listened to her now in testimony, and I feel sorry for her son, but honestly, you should know that going into the process of a tax bill. This is the way it is. We went from three years down to one. I would guess legal aid's head explode if we went from one year down to six months or nothing. I could get to nothing on vacant properties, but when I I would argue we'd struggle mightily to find a definition that is going to be acceptable to all parties on vacant properties. Senator Glars? So, Chris, thank you.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: I appreciate your testimony. I find it a little odd that a mortgage company wouldn't want to make sure that that a property was maintained because a property that deteriorates is a property that may never pay back what you owe to the bank. So to that point

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: Excellent point. Can I respond?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Maybe. I wasn't quite finished, but I'll respond right now. Go for it.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: No, no, no. Please finish. Please finish.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: We're only talking about vacant properties. Not talking about going in where people are living. We're talking about, you know, we're they're not living there. Vacant, we are capable of finding vacant. That's not that

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: I think that's 192 compared to 196.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: It's Fagan is vacant. I I think that we would this is one of the things that we would want to ensure that in 01/1996 is that that it's assumed, at least I had assumed, that this would be a property that that there was no one living in. And I mean, not living in. You mean and it may not even have water hooked up or electricity, and it may, but it's of no one's, it's to no one's advantage to have a property deteriorate, at least of

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: all the banks. I wouldn't disagree with you at all. However, let's think about the banks and your initial comment. If a property owner is not delinquent on their mortgage, we as a financial institution have no right to exercise our authority under our documents unless we go to court to do so. No right whatsoever if they are current on their mortgage. If they are not current on their mortgage, that is a different discussion. So in this case, you're talking about property taxes. What happens in the case of property taxes? I think you alluded to it earlier. If the bank knows that there is a portion of the property taxes or all of the property taxes that are delinquent for a period of time, we will step in and often cure that delinquency and we will set up a payment plan with the bar, perhaps escrow or increase escrow, in order to protect our interests in that collateral. If it is a continuation, then we have a problem, but we still can't exercise our authority under the note if they're currently paying the mortgage.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: What if they're not paying the mortgage and they're not paying their taxes? Well, I I I I mean, then then it's a different

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: story altogether. If they're not paying if if they're not paying the mortgage, then we have a right to move to foreclosure. We have a robust foreclosure process in Vermont as negotiated by myself and the person to my left, Bruce Bassman.

[Speaker 0]: And there are steps

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: in place that we have to provide for options of a repayment plan over a certain period of time, notices and everything. They're not paying, we're gonna go through the steps in that process, and if it works out, great. And if it doesn't work out, we're gonna move through the foreclosure process, which on average is two and a half to three years. If they're, so that's if they're not paying their mortgage, and again, they're not paying their property taxes, we will often step in because we wanna preserve our interest in that collateral. Right. I'm sorry. What's your interest?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yes. Senator Vyhovsky.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: So if the person's paying the mortgage, you have no ability to compel them to clean the property or repair the property. And don't, under the law, if you're the mortgage holder, don't you technically own the property until they've paid it all?

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: Well, the deed is in the property owner's name. So technically, they own the property, but we have a lean interest in that property because we provided the funding for them to buy it, but

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: the deed is technically the But you have more ownership than a municipality would of that property. No, no. No, okay, I do not.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: Yeah, it's It's not.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: In a private home?

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: If it's for property taxes?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Not for property taxes. Oh, if there's I'm kinda confusing the bills, they're too similar, I'm sorry.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: Okay, so if there's, we have a priority position with our lien the first place, is to protect our interest in that collateral and get a rebate in the event something goes wrong. Town has a priority to lead if the property taxes or water sewer aren't being paid.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Again, I actually confused the bills because of how similar they are. Yep. How, so the committee that made the recommendations that we were looking at in the report the other day, how many times did that committee meet? I'm just trying to get an understanding of the research that went into the decision.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: You served on it, Jim Knapp served on Yeah, the gentleman on Zoom served on it. Lead served on it. Senator, I want to say it was probably four or five times, had individual committees that took various sections of it. And when the group, when the committees reported back and we talked about this particular section, there was a general consensus, I think there was complete consensus, not general, that this was an issue that was,

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: that

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: our recommendation was to look at existing laws and statutes that are at the disposal of municipalities already. I think in particular, one example that we were kind of focusing on was, to your point in Rutland, there are some properties that are being used for legal purposes. There's nothing to prevent a municipality today from going in and working with local law enforcement to take action. So our point was look at your existing statutes to see what authority you have today rather than going down this road because this is a very complex discussion to have with many parties that have to come to the table to reach agreement on what do we all mean by vacant, what do we all mean by divided?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: But it sounds like you did pretty significant research and work to come to the conclusion that we shouldn't be doing this.

[Speaker 0]: I

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: would agree the working group and the representatives on the working group came to that conclusion and maybe we shouldn't go this far, but I'll go this far by default. The legislature came to that conclusion because the only thing that came out of that study committee was the $1,500 one year and $1,500 minimum tax delinquency. The rest was not taken out by the legislation.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Senator Cox.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: So what if we actually just change the whole time frame? Because one of the things that's just clearly bizarre is that you a person a buyer buys a property at tax sale, but they don't own it. Why don't we put everything that needs to be resolved ahead of a tax sale? Why do we have this ridiculous system where you buy it, but don't own it? That makes no sense to me. Why don't we do all the opportunity for somebody to raise the money and cure their debts ahead of a tax sale. Why can't the tax sale be the last thing that happened Yeah. Rather than in the middle of the process? Right. Because it makes no sense to be having people go through this no Does man's

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: it work?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: From my understanding,

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: you're thinking, a year goes by, I'm delinquent on my property taxes, we go through all of the steps to create a payment plan or help cure, I can't do any of that, and the last step in the process is the tax sale where after that- Then you have no rights and transfer. Then it's It's Well,

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: why why do we not do that?

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: I I whoever set the policies.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: It's been a ridiculous policy. That it Well,

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: I I think that's why you're gonna have additional discussions, but I would say that if you're gonna go down that road, there's gonna be a lot of interested parties who are gonna wanna talk about that process to ensure that the homeowner has every opportunity to cure that debt

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: and So that's a two years. They have two years at the moment to do that.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: I hear you, Alison. I get it, but I'm just saying that's a very different process than what we have today and not wanting A process you have today makes no You can do quickly without a lot of discussion.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Right. So I'm just curious why your committee didn't creatively sort of think outside the box and kind of come up with

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: a new system. We we had defined items that we were targeted to look at. Oh, that's never limited in testing. Well, I look. I I correct me if I'm wrong. Did our committee think about this what the senator's proposal? I

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: don't recall. Can speak more to it. We do currently have a judicial foreclosure. I'm sorry. Grace Caston from Vermont Legal Aid for the record. And so there are currently two different ways in the statutes that towns can foreclose their tax liens or do a tax sale process. One is the one that we're talking about today, which is, in my experience, the one that a 100% of towns use, which is a faster process. There is no judicial oversight or due process rights other than some notices that have to be mailed to the homeowners. And the other process is one that we think is much more protective of homeowners and their constitutional rights, which is what what mister Delia's members have to do when a mortgage isn't paid, which is to start a judicial foreclosure process. And in that process, you have due process rights, you have court oversight, and once you you get a court decision and you get a final judgment of foreclosure, there's a presale redemption period of six months, and at the end of that process, what is sold at auction is the property rights. And that is how many, many states conduct their tax sale processes. So I certainly, from Vermont Legal Aid's perspective, would 100% be in favor of using that judicial tax lien foreclosure process because I think it strikes the balance between protecting homeowner rights, but also rather than selling this intangible selling the tax lien. When you get to the sale, you're actually selling a property. Right. So that is another model. And that is already on our statute books. The reason it is not used is because there are additional expenses to the municipalities, is my guess, and there's additional process that's It's

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: so much cleaner. It's just a cleaner process.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Municipalities can already do exactly what you were just saying?

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Correct. They have to wait two years for that tax lien to mature to a point that they are statutorily allowed to start the foreclosure sale process. But yes, every municipality in the state currently has that opportunity. So you've done

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Then why don't we just get rid of the tax sale process and make the appellees do that?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: I think that would make much more sense.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: It's like we should get rid of this whole tax sale process.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I wanna at least get get

[Kevin O’Toole (Attorney; counsel to municipalities/VLCT on tax sales)]: I think so. I I have an appointment at 03:15.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. And

[Kevin O’Toole (Attorney; counsel to municipalities/VLCT on tax sales)]: I thought he was coming on at 02:30. Oh, go ahead. With all due respect to Grace and Chris, if I could just if I could just speak for a little bit about this s '96.

[Speaker 0]: Okay?

[Kevin O’Toole (Attorney; counsel to municipalities/VLCT on tax sales)]: January. First, as to the first question about whether a bidder should be allowed early access, I submitted as an an exhibit a section of the working group's report of which Chris was a member and Grace was a member. Okay? And on this particular point, we were unanimous because there was it was unclear of whether or something was deteriorating. It was also quite clear that third party, even a high bidder, does not have an insurable interest at all. So if they come on the property, they're not being insured at all. And let's just say it's been abandoned because somebody has died and the family is trying to struggle to agree to have an estate probated. Okay? So suddenly and they put it up for sale. You're gonna have a third party go on a property that you can't control and interfere with the sale process. It just, you know, so we had several things. Also, illegal activity, there are other avenues available. You can call the police. There are other avenues. If it's deteriorated, you can condemn the property. There's already legal avenues for that. So our committee was, and I think it was myself and Grace Pazden, and there was a subgroup, but we were unanimous on this point that it was just too complicated to deal with. And the existing one year had worked quite well. And I tell people at a tax sale, you don't have the right to go on the property. You have the right to have interest on your bid, period, during the year. Because let's just say that a bidder had this right and went on and started making improvements and somebody redeems. Well, now the person can kick them off. And that bidder is out of luck. I mean, they've made improvements. They're not going to get reimbursed. And Lord knows what they've done because the bidder can't control what they're doing. It's just really a mess and one you really don't want to step into. As far as the second part of reducing the redemption period to six months, as it is, after the year redemption period, if the IRS is involved, they have an exclusive 120 after that to so six months would be within that, but it would give you very, very little leeway.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Okay?

[Kevin O’Toole (Attorney; counsel to municipalities/VLCT on tax sales)]: Also, in the six months right now, one of the best things that Grace pushed for and I bucked on it, but it's been great, that you have to send out a certified reminder letter between ninety days and one hundred and twenty days from the end of the redemption period. You reduce this to six months, you're sending it out within two months of the sale. So let's just say that you've been behind on your taxes and you just couldn't get it together, you couldn't get a payment plan and it went to tax sale. 're trying your relatives, you're trying everything to get it, finally you say, you know, I'm going to have to put the property up for sale. Six months might not be enough time to do that. Certainly not if they have to probate an estate in order to be able to sell the property. One year, I've been doing this since 1988. The one year redemption period has been there at least since then, and it has worked. Furthermore, tax sales are under attack. I cannot imagine that if you lower the redemption period to six months, you're giving them ammunition to attack sales altogether. Furthermore, who are we serving? Who are we trying to benefit? The municipalities just want to collect their taxes, period. If they have a tax sale, they've got their money. So the rest is just up to the bidders. Are we trying to serve these bidders? Are we trying to ultimately help people who might lose their homes? People are making interest on their money. They're getting 12%. They're doing just fine, but that's not who we should be looking out for. The last legislature went out of its way to make a $1,500 minimum to say we had to wait for a year because we were concerned about people who might lose their homes. I think that's where the I think, with all due respect, that's where the focus should be. Now the year is is a is, you know, a firm deadline, and when people are under tax sale, the first discussion we have with them is you have a year to work this out, but you only have a year. Six months sounds an awful lot different, and I would be very much opposed to that. Our working group did talk entirely about the first subject, and that's in the report that I submitted as an exhibit.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yep.

[Kevin O’Toole (Attorney; counsel to municipalities/VLCT on tax sales)]: The second, we didn't discuss, but I would be opposed to. But I think that Ms. Paston would certainly agree that we were on we were on board together on that. And I think that she would be opposed to lengthening it from six months.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Okay. We're gonna hear from Grace and Mehta, Senator Clarkson.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Kevin, could you just identify who you are for the record and what your experience is? What do you serve? Do you come to this committee as a lawyer, as a as a manager? What what it's I'm unfair. When you're

[Kevin O’Toole (Attorney; counsel to municipalities/VLCT on tax sales)]: working group, I represented the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. I'm an attorney who's helped municipalities conduct tax sales since 1988. Okay. Now, I'm representing five different towns doing tax sales. We hear stories all the time, and we try to be as compassionate as we can because these are all individuals with individual cases. And the case I said about, you know, one, the parent died, the two brothers have to probate an estate in order to sell it. That's going to take time. Okay?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: So can I just follow-up on this We've got more minutes before you leave us? You I I I don't think you should disparage bidders because they are people trying to afford a house at a rate that they can actually afford it. So there are lot of people with you know, we have a housing crisis, so people are trying to do things affordably. What do you think of Grace's idea of our actually I mean, I I think what I would love to do is is really go back to the system. Grace, it says exist in law where we have before you even have a tax sale, you have exercised all the opportunities for people to cure their debts and to actually maintain ownership of the house. First, let's

[Kevin O’Toole (Attorney; counsel to municipalities/VLCT on tax sales)]: just just back

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: up Can to I

[Kevin O’Toole (Attorney; counsel to municipalities/VLCT on tax sales)]: If people wanna buy a house, they're not gonna use a tax sale because they can always redeem it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: That's not the case. I know plenty of people who go and try and buy a house at tax sale who can't afford a house in Woodstock, for example, at an average price of $800,000 So no, I don't agree with you. I think there are people who are actually trying to buy houses and renovate them and fix them up. You know? So, anyway, we can argue about that. But what my question is is, don't you think it would serve all everyone better if we finish all the work of curing a tax debt before we enter a tax sale. And then as Grace has has suggested, there is an opportunity in the statute for us to choose so that we don't have this limbo, this land this crazy land of somebody thinking they've bought something, but actually not going to get for a whole year.

[Kevin O’Toole (Attorney; counsel to municipalities/VLCT on tax sales)]: First, when I have a tax sale, I make it quite clear to people before the tax sale, during the one year period, all they have is a bid, the right to have interest, and that they don't have the right to go on a property. Okay, that's made crystal clear to them. It's also made clear to them that if the year goes by, they're going to get a tax deed and also probably a delinquent tax bill for the year that came just went through. Okay? So I make that clear to them. I'm going to say 80% of all tax sales I do are redeemed. Okay? So if you want to go buy a house, this is

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: not This the

[Speaker 0]: way to do

[Kevin O’Toole (Attorney; counsel to municipalities/VLCT on tax sales)]: is just not the way to do it. Once in a while, we have a situation where we know it's going to be lost. Maybe it's vacant land. Maybe it's an estate and the person's died and no one's opened an estate for years. So sometimes we do know it's going to be lost, but it's something like 80% are redeemed. So I think that the job that the legislature should try to further is a tax sales point is to collect taxes. Okay. If you have a tax sale, you do that. Should, you know, the bidders have an incentive. They're making a percent a month on the bid, you know. So if you bid 10,000 at a bit at its tax sale and it's 1% a month, I mean, it's a little bit a 100,000. You're gonna make a thousand a month. Okay. You're doing fine. You're doing fine. That's 10%. It's not 12%. Percent a month you're getting. That's what many of our bidders they don't want the properties. They're just chasing the interest.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Okay. I haven't answered my question, which is, can we what would you think of using Grace's idea of completing the entire process before you even enter into a tax sale? So, there is not this period of uncertainty for anybody.

[Kevin O’Toole (Attorney; counsel to municipalities/VLCT on tax sales)]: Our working group did actually invite Grace to have somebody from Maine talk to us about a different system, and at that time we did not agree on adopting that and went back to just curing the existing statute. I think that's just a larger discussion. But I would say that if you want to cure a housing problem, don't use a tax sale statute to do it. Don't try to make some end run. It's a round peg in a square hole. It doesn't work. But I will say that in some close to forty years of doing this, you know, we work with people all the time to try to make sure that they're not going to lose their homes and pay the taxes. Sometimes it doesn't. It seems like my appointment is knocking through the door, but.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And apologize. I wish our legislative time ran on the sort of schedule you might be able to adhere to, but it doesn't. So that's why we didn't take it up right at 02:30 because the the bill before we we got caught up. And so Oh, no.

[Kevin O’Toole (Attorney; counsel to municipalities/VLCT on tax sales)]: Things happen. But Yeah. Okay. Just learned about it on Friday.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: So Yeah.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Thank you, Kevin. I appreciate it.

[Kevin O’Toole (Attorney; counsel to municipalities/VLCT on tax sales)]: Okay. Alright. Thank you very much.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Thank you. You bet. So our final witness is indeed with us, and please join us at the table. This is Grace Pazdin from the Vermont Legal Aid, and she also submitted written testimony, but if you want to just read that, or however you want to

[Speaker 0]: express your own feeling on this.

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Thank you, and thank you for having me today to talk about S-one 196. For the record, Grace Hasden. I'm currently the director of the consumer and homeowner rights project at Vermont Legal Aid. I've been an attorney there for seventeen years. During all of that time, I have worked with low income, disabled,

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: and older

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: homeowners, both defending against foreclosures and property tax sales. And as you heard from Chris and Kevin, I was also very involved in Act 106 and on the Act 106 Working Group, which considered a lot of these issues that we're talking about today. It is one of these rare beautiful unicorn moments where we all agree on these topics. And I jotted down when I was told that I would have the opportunity to address you today, I jotted down many, many notes about the various actions in this bill. And I'm gonna be able to consolidate my comments because these folks before me have already testified to a lot of what I would have said. But I guess, just the overarching thing that I would like folks to understand from the perspective of someone who works with people who are struggling to keep up with their delinquent taxes and who are finding themselves in tax sale process, is that primarily what we see is that folks are not able to access their homestead property tax credits. So these are fixed income folks, older Vermonters who are on Social Security retirement benefits, disabled Vermonters who are getting disability benefits. They don't interact with the income tax filing system, and our homestead property tax credit program is tied to filing forms with the tax department every April at income tax time, and folks don't know how to access the prop that process. They often miss out on tax credits. I mean, really, like, life saving tax credits that mean that they can both pay their taxes and put food on their table. And so that spirals to a point where people fall way behind on property taxes that they shouldn't have voted in the first instance because their tax credit would have covered most of that. And I can tell you I've never interacted with a homeowner who hasn't paid their taxes because they didn't want to or they weren't prioritizing it. It's either this situation I'm telling you about or it's some kind of catastrophic illness, medical issue, loss of a spouse or other household income earner. It's always some kind of financial crisis that is leading people to this place. And folks really need that one year period to figure out a way to come up with the funds, which tend to be pretty significant. They include 12% interest that this tax sale bidder is making over the course of that redemption period. And, you know, folks are often waiting on a tax refund to get paid up. They're trying to get take a loan against the equity of their home to pay it off. They're, you know, trying to set aside funds and pull together borrowed funds from friends and family. So cutting that, what is fairly short to begin with, from our perspective, and some states are at three years, Vermont's at one year, post sale, would be really, really harmful to people's ability to save their properties.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Senator

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Vyhovsky? I'm just trying to I really appreciate your testimony. I'm just trying to understand, so are there states that don't do this tax sale process at all and just do the sort of judicial process that you were talking about?

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Yes. And I will tell you, I have not looked at every state's statute, but it is a state by state analysis. Every state does this a little bit differently. And some are selling the property through a judicial process, and some are selling a tax lien certificate closer to what most municipalities do in Vermont. What is unique, I think, about Vermont is that municipalities already do have this statutory authority to go through the same judicial foreclosure process that mortgage lenders use, I we have never seen that. And historically, it just has always been this non judicial, we give notice, we do a public auction of the lien, that sits for a year while the person has that year to redeem. And then at the end of it, title just gets transferred by the tax collector. One thing that I think I can add to this discussion that may be the very best reason for this committee not to act on this bill is that there is currently pending before the United States Supreme Court an appeal that they are hearing next week. They're hearing oral argument on next week. It's called Pung v Isabella County. It's a case out of Michigan where the sixth circuit held essentially that it was constitutional and did not violate the takings clause or the excessive fines clause of the constitution for the municipality to take a property at tax sale, sell it to a third party for some amount less than what the property was valued so long as they handed over the proceeds, the surplus over to the homeowner. The the homeowner has now appealed, and the United States Supreme Court soffit to grant cert to to hear this appeal and will now be taking up the question of, is it an an unconstitutional taking or an unconstitutional excessive fine for the town to take a property for something less than the actual value of the property? And in Vermont, I will tell you that if that case goes frankly the way that for our constituents, we hope it will go, that will mean that the current tax law procedure tax sale procedure that we have on our law books could very well be unconstitutional, and we will need a whole scale re revamping of our statutory tax sale process. So I would suggest, since that decision's probably gonna hit this summer based on how the supreme court operates, that this committee hold off on making any tax sale policy changes this session because we're gonna know a lot more about what the constitutional confines of tax sale process are, and that's a better position from which to make tax sale policy.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Sounds good.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Seems really reasonable. My other question for you, and you may not have the answer, the data may not exist, but one of the questions, one of the data points we've now heard twice is that 80% of people whose homes are sold at tax sale redeem within the year. Do you have a sense of when within that year is sort of the average?

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I I can't say that I have enough, I think, of a pool to give you really good statewide data on that, but I will say that I personally worked with at least a handful of homeowners who weren't able to redeem until sort of the last couple of months of the process. And that's because they're applying for a reverse mortgage so that they can take you know, they can access equity from their property to pay off the debt. It's because they're trying to pull together funds from where they can find them. They're waiting for tax season so that because they know they're gonna qualify for a tax refund. So I I absolutely think that a year is not only reasonable and sort of minimally necessary. I think if you look at other states and how their process works, I think a year is a pretty average amount of time. There are a few outliers that have six months, but there are also a lot of states that have, like, a three year post sale redemption period. So I would personally be very uncomfortable with anything less than

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: But your experience is that once someone has the money, they they pay it. They're not waiting until day 364 just because they can?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Oh,

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: absolutely. Yeah. Folks are folks are absolutely paying as soon as soon as they can. I mean, it is challenging because you have to remember that not only is it the delinquent tax, with every month, right, there's an additional 1% interest that's accruing on that debt, plus you're paying all of the fees and costs associated with that tax sale process. So once you get to that tax sale, you're really talking about things increasing quite a bit. And then in terms of what other folks have already discussed in terms of the bidder being able to go onto the property, I mean, I really think as others have said, I think there are some real liability concerns there. I think, you know, homeowners aren't even entitled to a report of sale from the tax sale. So you might not even know that somebody has whatever amorphous interest they have in your home when they purchase your tax lien bid. And now this person might be storming onto your property because they think it's deteriorating. I mean, people have guns across the state. This could be a law enforcement, like, liability issue. I just think there are a lot of potential scary implications of allowing folks who don't have a title interest in the property to sort of come on and potentially change locks or make improvements to the property, particularly when you hear that 80% of the time the original homeowner is going to retain the homeownership rights at the end of the day, and then where does that leave everybody's interest at the end of the process?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Senator Clarkson.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Grace, guess all your points well, and I think they're terrific. I really am intrigued with or without the supreme court because I mixed feelings about what they're capable of anyway at the moment. But I I think your original proposal to us is great because I think going to to what what are we calling a judicial judgment Judicial foreclosure. Yeah. Exactly. Foreclosure. It's so much cleaner. It just makes so much more sense. I think this I mean, even though it saves the municipality money, the the 12% interest alone is the reason not to have done it. I don't understand why we got ourselves into this very messy, awkward opportunity. I mean, it is I would much rather see a clean system of giving people adequate time to cure the debt and the lien, And then they have a real tax sale. I mean, then have a real sale rather than a tax sale if they're not able to do it. It just makes so much more sense. I really think that one of the things I balk at is that this is just a messy process that families I mean, for most people, because we have experience around the table where people are speaking from experience having gone through this, it's just such a challenge for family for those who are living in the house. I mean, think that the fixing the house up and protecting it from the elements is more for vacant homes, not for houses that are occupied. And it was never intended for occupied houses. So but I think your judicial the judicial process makes so much

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: more I mean, how we ever got here.

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I I don't think it would be hard to move in that direction. It would really be about removing the ability Yeah. To just file a a warrant in the land records and and do the tax sale after notice. I I still would caution the committee to wait to see what the Supreme Supreme Court tells us because even with the judicial foreclosure process, there is a world in which the Supreme Court says, even at the end of a judicial foreclosure process, when the property is sold at foreclosure auction, it has to be sold for a certain percentage of the value of the property. Right? Because the question is about people not losing their equity. The the municipality not taking the equity from their home. So I think we're gonna learn a lot when that decision comes out. And if, you know, this committee or the legislature in general wants to take a look at tax sale policy, I think the moment to do that Is that is that her Isabela County. And I did in the email I sent to the committee earlier, I sent the link to the supreme court docket. Right.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: So that you can learn more. Don't take your testimony. Oh, great.

[Chris D’Elia (President, Vermont Bankers Association)]: I'm just kidding.

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I think I'm okay for today. Okay. Thank you. And I I will just say as to I was here for s one ninety two. I just became aware of that earlier today. I had some very big concerns about that and the and the provisions in s one ninety six around increasing and expanding municipalities authority to make repairs of common properties. Again, I think this is gonna implicate really complicated constitutional fourth amendment, surge and seizure issues, takings issues.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: I mean,

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: you really there is this police power that, you know, government, you know, entities have, but it's really around, like, imminent risks to safety and health. And this starts to get really squishy in terms of allowing municipalities to come onto properties for a whole host of potential issues that really aren't about imminent harm to the community and to the public. It's meant to be about harm to it it's meant to be

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: about harm. I think we can. Yeah. Anyway, we will hear from Sprint.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I thought you were all set.

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: I have.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I think there's a difference between harm and imminent harm. I that is a critical point. I do have a so I'm zooming back to tax sale for a moment because it's sort of a larger question of, like, how if there are things we could do or change Yeah. To help prevent people from getting into those positions. Because one of the challenges I mean, I don't know this personally because I can't afford to own home and run. But one of the challenges I hear about is the sort of that year. So something really big happens. I retire. I lose a spouse, and my taxes that year are gonna be on last year's income. Right. And so that retrospective and what's whereas if we moved to an income tax or we moved to, like, something that was more immediately responsive to income changes, if that would decrease the number of people that ever found themselves in a position of having to go to tax.

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Yeah. I think that is one problem that's that's affecting particularly a lot of folks in towns that have recently reassessed where the the value has jumped way up, but you're still doing this one year look back and it's creating a situation where people's credits aren't really filling that gap. But that's for the people who have figured out how to bust that income credit. So I think that's the biggest issue. And I know I've talked to the tax department. You know, I I think the legislature has gone back and forth over the decades around whether you sort of opt into the homestead and you stay in the homestead and you get your credits or whether you have to refile every year. I think this filing every year and not having a retroactive an ability to to go back and file retroactively if you miss it is really hurting the lowest income, most vulnerable homeowners who really need those tax credit. That's who we talk to every day. Testified to Ways Means, though? I have testified to Ways and Means, but within the context of that act one zero six bill, which sort of addressed a bunch of issues. And so I can't say that any committee has fully sort of looked at or taken up the issue of the tax credits. And I I think it is thorny. A lot of other states sort of do it. They have county infrastructure, and their tax credits or tax inventions are dealt with, like, at the county level. Right? So you would sort of you would have to figure out a system that could work in Vermont, but, like, most of these poor homeowners are not interacting with the tax department, and they're just missing it. They don't they don't know to file. They don't know how to get that tax credit. They don't even know it exists. And so they're paying thousands of dollars more in property taxes per year than they should based on their income. So it's great because we have a very progressive tax credit policy on the books, but like anything else, to some extent, it's window dressing unless people can actually access it. And my family for many years when we qualified accessed it. Right? I'm an attorney and I'm at the up you know, our household was at the upper end of that, and I could figure out how to get those forms filed, but I didn't need it. I wouldn't have lost my home had I not gotten it. But those clients who really aren't gonna be able to hang on to their property without without those credits are the ones who are, you know, very rarely gonna be able to access it.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Thanks. That's really helpful. I just whenever I I know that that's not what we're talking about here, but it, to me, sort of identified an upstream. Absolutely. We can argue all day long about how the tax shelves still should happen, but I think it's almost more important to prevent someone from ever getting a point of tax sale. So thank you for indulging me. You're very welcome. If there's anything I

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: can do to help the committee or anyone in this building sort of If we have find a path forward on that issue.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: We have actually, in the office of administration, we actually have somebody who's responsible for communicating to the public. Rebecca Kelly, I can't remember the name of her office, but she's director of this piece of communication. I cannot believe that every we need to communicate this opportunity, particularly if we keep it depending on what happens with the inflation property tax. But if we keep it, if there are that many people who are not filing for their homestead declaration and therefore not being able to access their income sensitivity, that is shocking. Go door to door to every home when I was a house member and very few people didn't access that particularly in Woodstock because they it was too valuable to not access it. I don't know how those people a of disabled clients.

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: We work with a lot of people with challenges. And like, I mean, I will tell you, it's a very complicated form too. So we have that problem too, where we have folks who will file and don't end up getting their credit.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Well, but there are plenty of people out there to help them too. So there is help there in our Senator White.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: Thank you, mister chair. Yeah. We so I serve on the board of abatement for the town of Hartford, and that was the complete difference between

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: Previous years and the most recent two years was folks who had never previously filed their taxes. Well, they had, but then they were retired, and so they were stopped filing their income tax. And so then they thought, oh, I can just go back and I can get that money, and then they can't. And it really surprised me.

[Sen. John Morley III (Clerk)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: Some folks were able to take advantage of some federal support that had been available during COVID, I guess.

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: We have. Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: Yeah. But That's long gone.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: We ended up yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: What we ended up seeing was we were just abating people's taxes because we just thought they are owing taxes that they should not be owed. Therefore, we as the town will take on the burden of the that's what at least in our

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Well, thank you for doing that.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: We abated so many of those situations. And I know I had heard in other towns, like, they weren't abating those instances, which was very surprising to me. So I do think we need to address it. And and I would also just ponder. It concerns me that you have no ability to even go back to one year with the homestead tax exemption because what we found were folks who were almost within, like, a month of filing, like, the deadline by a month, and they were still owing thousands of dollars that they had not anticipated because the timing of when did change in their property value happen and the time and the change of when they would have needed to file were not the same. Like, the the the the alert of I'm gonna have to pay more money came after the deadline to file your taxes where you maybe even had pondered, do I really wanna actually file my taxes? I only get what? A 100, like, off anyway? Well, no. You actually would have gotten, like, $3,000 off. But because you didn't have that that alert basically that you were yeah. It was very shocking to see. And we may not see it door to door, but we see it at the abatement hearings. And so I do support this.

[Kevin O’Toole (Attorney; counsel to municipalities/VLCT on tax sales)]: And I

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: would just say for your service, and I appreciate that that your town is abating. I mean, that is another area where we have tried to get some movement because that is a very that's an entirely discretionary process. And so we find from one side of a town border to another, this word of abatement may just, you know, always say no regardless of how sympathetic the circumstances are or what the basis for the request is. And it might be due to no fault of their own. Right? Someone didn't get a credit, and yet that account just has a process where they're always gonna say no to And then on the other side of the border, you could have a really great, you know, board of abatement that is really looking at the case by case facts and abating where it's appropriate. So certainly tightening up abatement and creating some criteria under which boards should abate could be really helpful.

[Sen. Rebecca “Becca” White (Member)]: And we made some changes last time because and because of Hartford, I would argue, because we were having trouble with abatement of water and sewer issues where we were technically outside of the law. And so it's nice to get, like, the official cleanup. But I do wish there was a way like, we have a checklist of what do you qualify in the statute to actually mean that you should get an abatement. And I wish there was a way to say, like, other taxes are the reason. Like, oh, like, debt to the state or federal tax. Yeah. I mean, you don't have a federal property tax, but you know what I'm saying. Like Yeah. If there was another way to frame it, because there is a difference between not having enough income having a catastrophic life event and then having other tax related problems affecting your property debt. I absolutely I have a lot of thoughts on that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson (Member; sponsor of S.192)]: Okay. Yeah.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Thank you very much, Grace, your testimony. We appreciate you taking time today to

[Speaker 0]: Thank you. Join

[Grace Pazdan (Director, Consumer & Homeowner Rights Project, Vermont Legal Aid)]: Appreciate it.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: And that will conclude our look at what we had up for discussion today. Tomorrow we're gonna do the two charters that we don't have enough information on Burlington and Essex and. So we will go off for the day and