Colorado Tax liens for high school students
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009
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Colorado tax lien sales are a mystery to a lot of people. For that reason, I took my freshly-turned-18-year-old out of school to attend her first tax lien sale in nearby Montrose County. She was wide-eyed at the process and the people. She returned to school and bragged to her high school civics teacher that she had done something “civic” during her absence. She now knew about tax liens. The teacher requested that I come to class and share the lesson with the other students. I agreed, but struggled with how to put the enormous importance of tax lien sales into a lesson that a high school student would understand.
This Chinese restaurant in our local small town did not pay their taxes of $16,000. A buyer who pays this amount for three years can apply for the deed to the property. At present, this concept has benefits and drawbacks.
I gathered some facts and figures for the 28 students. Dry statistics lose audiences, so I took a few pages of the tax lien along. I created alphabetical jobs (26 occupations), plus one retiree, and one unemployed person. I also grabbed some “Life” game cards with houses on them, and divided them into similar ratios as we have in our county, i.e., there are more mobile homes than mansions, and only a few very large properties. (more…)