Policy Brief: Tyler v. Hennepin County

On May 25, 2023, the United States Supreme Court released its opinion in Tyler v. Hennepin County, making a rare but significant incursion into the realm of property tax law and, more specifically, the state and local government practice of property tax foreclosure.

About a dozen states will be most directly impacted by this decision and will need to closely review their property tax statutes and practices. However, the Tyler decision has also renewed attention to longstanding inequities in the property tax system, from assessment to collection to enforcement and foreclosure. It presents all states and local governments with an unprecedented opportunity to create more equitable, efficient, and effective property tax systems.

While the focus of the Center for Community Progress has long been enhancing and coordinating a range of legal and policy tools—like property tax foreclosure—to help communities address vacant, abandoned, and deteriorated (VAD) properties, the Tyler decision has far more wide-ranging implications.

This is a key moment to engage lawmakers to advance reforms that maximize equity and fairness for individuals while still protecting a community’s ability to address vacancy and disinvestment, conditions that disproportionately impact Black and Brown neighborhoods.

This brief provides state and local government leaders with our perspective and analysis of the Tyler case by identifying and answering, to the best of our ability, key questions left unanswered by the Court. We also suggest high-level policy reforms state and local lawmakers should consider as they review their property tax systems and practices to comply with Tyler, and urge them to see the property tax system and property tax foreclosure, as critical tools to build more equitable, resilient communities.