This story is part of Profits and Losses, a service journalism project informing Detroiters how to claim millions from Wayne County, which foreclosed on their homes — then auctioned the properties for a profit. It was originally published by Outlier Media.
Wayne County owes thousands of Detroiters money after unconstitutionally profiting from their foreclosures. But so far, only about 7% of those former homeowners have a shot at getting what they’re owed.
Despite Treasurer Eric Sabree’s insistence that “this is your money,” claimants say his office has barely lifted a finger to help them navigate a confusing, bureaucratic claims process.
Wayne County estimated that about 5,600 properties could be eligible for claims. With less than two weeks to go until the Oct. 1 deadline, court filings show that fewer than 400 people have completed the final step of the claims process.
One of them is Lamont Bohannon, whose home on Detroit’s westside was foreclosed in 2018 and auctioned for $1,583 more than the taxes he owed.
Wayne County kept that profit — along with the surplus from thousands of other foreclosed homes — and used it to balance its budget.
Then, last year, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that municipalities had to pay that money back.
Bohannon managed to complete his claim before the deadline, but only after navigating a gauntlet of bureaucratic hurdles.
“It’s almost like they’re purposefully making it difficult to get people to just throw their hands up and walk away,” he said.
Former Detroit homeowners who’ve made it this far in the claims process are collectively owed roughly $5.9 million in profits that Wayne County kept from tax auctions between 2015 and 2020. If they don’t complete the final step of the claims process in two weeks, the county will get to keep the money.
‘No help at all’
Wayne County seized Sandra Burnett’s Detroit home in 2015 and auctioned it for $3,600 more than the unpaid taxes.
Reclaiming that money is turning out to be nearly more trouble than it was worth — and that’s saying something. The 77-year-old lives on a fixed income and is in poor health, and says she could put a check of that size to good use.
She only learned she was owed money when Outlier Media contacted her in February — the treasurer’s postcard-sized notice didn’t reach her.
To initiate her claim, she had to visit a notary and take a trip downtown to drop off a form.
Wayne County hired Kroll — a multinational financial and risk advisory firm — to handle outreach to claimants. Kroll was tasked with sending letters confirming what claimants are owed. But the letters went out via certified mail, and Burnett wasn’t home to sign for it.
“Claimants have been offered little or no meaningful guidance or assistance from the very government entities that illegally withheld their money in the first place,” said Donovan McCarty, director of the Housing Justice Clinic at Michigan State University, who has worked to assist claimants.
Motion assistance Did you file an intent to claim form earlier this year for a foreclosure between 2015-20? Now you’ll have to file a motion with the 3rd Circuit Court. Filing a motion is tricky. Read our guide to the process, then sign up for one-on-one assistance.
Outlier Media has been working with community groups since early this year to connect former homeowners with information to help them reclaim the money they’re owed. But even with that help, Burnett says the process was almost impossible to navigate.
“They’re hoping that somebody will forget about it, and that’s just not right,” she said of the claims process. “If you’re old, you don’t have transportation, you don’t have money, how can you do all these things?”
The problems she faced were echoed by other claimants who struggled to navigate the process.
Shawntone Davis raised her four children on Ilene Street near the old Marygrove College campus. She and her husband Brian fell behind on taxes when he lost his IT job during the Great Recession. Wayne County foreclosed on the house and sold it for $2,400 more than the taxes owed.
That experience, combined with the challenges she’s faced reclaiming the money, led her to a straightforward conclusion: “The Wayne County treasurer is no help at all.”
Adam Abusalah, spokesperson for the treasurer, said the office is doing what it can.
“The Treasurer’s Office cannot provide legal advice, but we regularly update the information on our website based on community feedback to help claimants understand the process and next steps,” he wrote in an email.
Tech-savvy claimants who manage to find the information in question — it requires quite a bit of scrolling — are instructed to pull information from a letter many say they never received.
Abusalah declined to make Sabree available for an interview.
A contractor falls short
Wayne County signed its $388,400 contract with Kroll in late February — about a month ahead of the deadline for foreclosed homeowners to submit a required form to start the claim process.
Kroll’s outreach campaign included billboards along major interstates alerting residents that they might have money to claim.
In the end, fewer than 2,900 claims were initiated across Wayne County — far short of the 5,600 Kroll estimated it would process. State law required Wayne County to send a letter to claimants by July 1 detailing what they are owed.
Many Detroiters were confused by the letter. It contained only the barebones instruction to file a motion with the 3rd Circuit Court — and no resources to help claimants navigate that complex process. Many didn’t know whether they were the plaintiffs or defendants in the case, much less how to use the court’s e-filing system.
In some cases, the notices didn’t reach their intended recipients. They were sent by certified mail, as required by statute, so a signature was required for delivery. Many Detroiters weren’t home, so their letters were sent back.
Kroll’s contract requires it to resend undelivered letters. But two and a half months later — and less than two weeks before the Oct. 1 deadline to file motions — many of those letters still haven’t arrived.
Alicia Fernnadze missed the initial letter Kroll sent her and spent hours trying to get a copy. She says staff at the Wayne County Treasurer’s Office met her request with blank stares. When a reporter sat in on her call to Kroll’s helpline, no one could even find her case in the system.
“Do you have a reference number?” they asked repeatedly. Fernnadze said no — the reference number was on the letter she was trying to get.
“Can’t you look up my address?” she asked, exasperated, pointing out that the Treasurer’s Office had that information when it foreclosed on her.
“I’m sorry,” a Kroll call center manager said. “We can’t do that.”
Fernnadze still hasn’t received her letter. She filed the motion anyway, with help from Outlier, but without the benefit of key information contained in the missing document, including the date of sale and whether she is actually owed money.
The Wayne County Treasurer’s Office declined to comment on whether Kroll is fulfilling its contract.
Kroll did not respond to requests for comment.
This article first appeared on Outlier Media and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
