Michigan

Proposal A of 1994 caps the annual growth in a Michigan property’s taxable value at five per cent or inflation, whichever is lower, so a house held for decades is usually taxed on a figure well below what it would sell for.

A transfer of ownership breaks that cap: under MCL 211.27a the taxable value resets the following year to the state equalized value, half of true cash value, and every year of accumulated protection disappears at once.

Since December 2014 there has been an exemption that matters enormously to families, because a transfer of residential property to the owner’s or their spouse’s parent, child, grandchild, brother or sister does not uncap it, provided the property is not used commercially afterwards.

It is not automatic, though, and the assessor learns the relationship from the Property Transfer Affidavit, so an unclaimed exemption defaults to uncapping.

Where several heirs hold a house as tenants in common, a transfer of one undivided share uncaps only that fraction, so a family can end up with a taxable value assembled from parts.

Michigan forecloses mostly by advertisement rather than through court, on four consecutive weeks of newspaper notice and a copy posted on the property.

The sheriff’s sale that follows is not the end of it, because an occupied home carries a six-month redemption period, agricultural land over three acres twelve months, and a property judged abandoned as little as thirty days, and the owner is entitled to stay put throughout.