LYDIA MCGREW: DC Government Much Worse than Scrooge. “This story is unbelievably damning. The Washington, DC, city government sells small debts for property tax to private investors. The investors are empowered to go immediately to court to foreclose on homes worth orders of magnitude more than the property tax debt. The investors are also empowered to bill the homeowners for the legal expenses incurred in trying to take their homes away. If the homeowner can’t pay the exorbitant legal bills on top of their sometimes quite minor original property tax owed (with interest), the home is sold, and the investor who purchased the lien gets everything. Not just collecting the original property tax owed. Not just collecting interest on the original property tax owed. Not even collecting only those things plus their own exorbitant legal fees incurred trying to take the home away. Everything. The entire value of the home.”