Widow can keep home despite $6.30 in late taxes [View all]

[Judi Lynn]

Widow can keep home despite $6.30 in late taxes
From wire reports • Sunday December 14, 2014 9:15 AM

A widow whose western Pennsylvania home was sold by the county after she failed to pay interest accrued on $6.30 in late tax fees was overjoyed when a court ruled she can keep her home, her lawyer said on Friday.

Eileen Battisti, who is in her early 50s and lost her husband in 2004, was unfamiliar with managing her finances and did not understand in 2009 that she owed the $6.30 late fee, which subsequently accrued $234.72 in interest, prompting the tax sale of her home in 2011, said her lawyer, Ed Santillan.

A judge in Pittsburgh on Thursday ruled that Battisti could keep ownership of the home in Aliquippa, about 20 miles northwest of Pittsburgh.

She has remained in the home with two of her three adult children since it was sold by the Beaver County Tax Claim Bureau to S.P. Lewis, a man who buys tax delinquent properties and sells them back to their former owners for a profit, according to court papers.

More:
http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/national_world/2014/12/14/widow-can-keep-home-despite-630-in-late-taxes.html