Miami-Dade County Tax Collector-Mayor Shut Out Minority Participation At Tax Sale, According To Distressed Real Estate Consulting Services, Inc.

PENSACOLA, Fla., April 11, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Next month Miami-Dade County will begin its annual rite of spring with the sale of nearly 40,000 tax lien certificates worth a total in excess of $150,000,000.  Tax certificates or tax liens are a method for Florida counties to collect unpaid and delinquent property taxes that represent dollars needed to fund a variety of public services.  Tax certificates are a very conservative investment that under Florida law offer the successful tax lien certificate buyer a return of no less than an absolute 5%.  Imagine that.  You purchase the certificate through an online internet platform contracted by the Dade County government and if the property owner shows up to pay the very next day you receive a return of 5% for holding it only 24 hours.  This can and does happen...but not so much for individual and small or minority owned businesses in Miami-Dade County.

The Tax Collector and Mayor of Dade County have approved a tax sale policy that allows Wall Street hedge funds and other large institutional investors to enjoy a "special status" whereby these funds are allowed to submit literally hundreds of thousands of bids for every one bid submitted by a citizen of Miami-Dade.  Unfair, you bet! Partisanship with a public sale that is not supposed to favor one bidder over the next? You bet!  Does a small or minority owned business in Miami-Dade have a chance at competing for this investment that is supposed to be offered in a fair and transparent public sale?  Not a prayer!  Is this a case of favoritism for big money over local citizens?  Sure looks that way! 

A card game makes for a good analogy of what has been allowed first by the Tax Collector and second by the Mayor and Board of County Commissioners.  In a game of poker each player receives 7 cards.  However, the player who brings the most money to the game is allowed to receive 14 cards.  Would the other players complain...You bet they would and they should. 

The Miami-Dade tax certificate sale is rigged for special interests over minority and small business interests!   May the policy be changed…Yes!  Contact the tax collector at [email protected] today before the 2014 tax sales begin next month.  Contact Mayor Gimenez at [email protected]

Minority and small businesses deserve a fair chance to invest their own money!

SOURCE Distressed Real Estate Consulting Services, Inc.