I dont have experience buying but have looked into it, from what I can tell, if you buy it at a tax auction, The owner has a certain amount of time to reclaim the property.

Wells Fargo initially quoted $1M value at for the house so they said $5.5K for the county tax (.05%) and $13.1K (1.28%) but a total of $18.6 in taxes but that seems really high

However, the mortgage and taxes are too high in this home to go that route. 

I don't want to pay any more than 1500 a month for mortgages and insurance and tax.  

While the homeowner gets to take the revenue and real estate tax benefits.

I have a side business doing tax returns for real estate investors and property managers.

I have suspended Passive Activity loss that would reduce the gain, but not eliminate the gain from tax POV.

You seem extremely confident in your initial claims, take me up on it.Either way, I do appreciate the honest feed back on my posts from both of you, I understand that NY is one of the hardest markets to succeed in, but I am a firm believer in the Stockdale Paradox (Jim Collins, Good to Great).Best,-JonThis wasn't a back and forth.

Legally you can claim estoppel and latches as a defense as they let it go on for so many years and you relied on it when buying. 

I was at a CCIM luncheon recently and some of my lender buddies and I were discussing that many of their banks are getting out of multi-family because of rising costs to manage the properties...including taxes and insurance.