The Ohio Supreme Court will weigh whether Cuyahoga County violated homeowners’ constitutional rights by foreclosing on properties over modest tax debts and then retaining the remaining equity — a practice that a proposed class-action lawsuit says has stripped thousands of residents of wealth without compensation.
The court agreed on Tuesday to hear the case, setting up a legal battle that will play out during an election year and could reshape how Ohio counties handle property tax delinquencies. At issue is not the county’s authority to foreclose on tax-delinquent properties — that power is established in state law — but what happens after the foreclosure, when the home is worth substantially more than the unpaid taxes.
The lead plaintiff, Angelo Craig of Cleveland, bought his house for $5,500 in August 2021, property records show, at a time when the median sale price in the city was $155,000. By the time the county pursued foreclosure, Craig owed about $12,400 in back taxes, according to filings in his lawsuit. The fair market value of the home, however, was approximately $45,000, and after the county took title, Craig received nothing beyond the satisfaction of the debt.
Similarly, co-plaintiff Angela Taylor lost her Shaker Heights home in 2011 after falling behind on property taxes that totaled about $14,000. The property’s fair market value was around $90,000, and she received no proceeds from the surplus. Abraham David owed $3,384 in taxes on his Cleveland property, and his home was seized without compensation for the remaining value.
Under Ohio law, counties may foreclose on tax-delinquent homeowners and sell the properties at auction. If a sale generates more than the tax debt, the law says the surplus should be passed to the former owner. But in all three plaintiffs’ cases, the auctions — cash-only affairs — failed to clear the legal minimum sale amounts, which ranged from $12,000 to $27,000. Because the homes didn’t sell, the county took title and, the lawsuit contends, simply kept the homes without accounting for the equity that exceeded the tax debt.
“This practice of taking ‘surplus equity’ violates both the Takings Clause and the Excessive Fines Clause of the Ohio Constitution,” wrote Ben Flowers, an attorney for the plaintiffs and a former solicitor general for the Ohio attorney general. “Yet this unconstitutional (and unconscionable) practice is widespread in Ohio. And courts, including the Eighth District below, allow it to persist.”
The plaintiffs, who filed their lawsuit in June 2024, lost first in trial court and later at the Eighth District Court of Appeals. By agreeing to hear the case, the Ohio Supreme Court signals that the legal question — whether equity seizure beyond a tax debt amounts to an uncompensated taking — merits full review. The justices will now schedule written arguments and oral presentations before issuing a ruling.
Cuyahoga County spokesperson Jennifer Ciaccia declined to comment on pending litigation and did not provide data on the county’s home forfeiture practices. The plaintiffs say the county has seized “thousands” of homes in similar fashion, though that figure could not be independently verified from the single-source wire report.
The case arrives as property tax burdens and housing affordability remain flashpoints in many American communities. While the specific dispute concerns Ohio’s constitutional provisions, the core question — whether a local government can treat a tax debt as a lever to claim an entire property’s value — echoes tensions across the country over how far asset forfeiture powers can extend before crossing into unconstitutional territory.