NCLC joined an amicus brief prepared by AARP in support of the petitioner’s efforts to reverse a decision of the 8th Cir. Court of Appeals affirming a Minnesota law that provides that excess revenues collected through a real estate tax taking revert to the public use rather than being paid to the property owner. Other states have similar laws. The amici specifically condemn the Minnesota law as violating the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment Takings Clause.
We urge the Court to consider the larger policy consequences of one specific aspect of the Eighth Circuit panel opinion – the inappropriate burden of proof it places on homeowners to meet the threshold showing that they possessed a property interest in their own home equity. We also ask the Court to consider the human cost of such laws for the nation’s older homeowners in particular. Inevitably, those laws will have a disproportionately greater impact on older homeowners of modest means.