Regina Hargrove said that when her Northwest Washington house was sold at a tax sale in 2006, she had no idea the sale had occurred. Hargrove, 63, had moved back the previous year, after spending time away to recover from a drug addiction. The tax bills probably did come to the house, she said, but a family member living there at the time most likely never brought them to anyone’s attention.
Hargrove said she didn’t learn what had happened until the investor who bought her home’s tax certificate sued her in District of Columbia Superior Court in 2007. Hargrove, like thousands of other local property owners facing similar cases, faced foreclosure if she couldn’t pay the taxes she owed plus interest and attorney fees to the investor.
