The only reason I'm not laughing is that because by the time all is said and done, the only people going to get anything out of this are the lawyers. :/
And if the news story is reporting the facts correctly (which I'm sure it isn't, 'cause there's some glaring omissions...) then I've already spotted three good legal challenges for both sides. ... Combined, not per.
The city fucked up, the accountants REALLY fucked up (and are going to be the big losers here), the homeowners fucked up, and the buyers... made some unfortunate choices that are going to bite them on the ass.
The Auction: If they sent the notice to only one address, then the city is in violation of the law. By law, you're required to send notice like that to ALL PARTIES OF INTEREST
That means every address ever owned by the accountant, each and every adjacent homeowner, as well as the people who are named on the deed of ownership. (Probably the the accountant, possibly not.)
Further, government auctioning of land, at least in Nevada, requires notice to be posted or announced in a place where it can be reasonably expected to be seen.
NEXT, the accountant. Failure to file a proper change of address is a nono. Failure to PAY BILLS is a big nono. You can't claim ignorance on property taxes. (You can, but it doesn't work.)
The homeowners group, even if they didn't receive notice (Which I find difficult to believe, but certainly possible), still has a responsibility to be aware of what's going on with their property. The guard company, at the very least, should have been notified of this and in turn should have notified the homeowners' group.
And finally, by employing that surveying company, they tipped their hand way too soon. The wiser course of action would have been to flip the property in a public, short-notice advertised auction. They've basically left themselves wide open for numerous legal challenges, which are definitely coming.
WAY too many people would have had to have fucked up way too many times for things to happen like this by chance... and if they HAD fucked up this bad, that would be newsworthy in and of itself.
There’s no point in acting surprised about it. All the ordinances have been on display at their local planning department for 30 years, so they’ve had plenty of time to lodge any formal complaint and it’s far too late to start making a fuss about it now. If they can’t be bothered to take an interest in local affairs, that’s their own lookout.
Bearing in mind that all of these observations are WITHOUT knowledge of San Francisco city and county law.a $14-a-year property tax bill that the homeowners association failed to pay for three decadeshow does a bill go unpaid for 30 years like that