MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: The County Sold Her Home Over Unpaid Taxes and Kept the Profit. SCOTUS Wasn’t Having It.

When local bureaucrats in Hennepin County, Minnesota, seized an elderly woman’s home over a small tax debt, sold it, and kept the profit, they likely had no idea they would set in motion a series of events that would cripple the practice known as “home equity theft” across the country.

Yet that’s what happened. The Supreme Court on Thursday unanimously ruled that the government violated the Constitution when it took possession of Geraldine Tyler’s condo over an overdue property tax bill, auctioned the home, and pocketed the proceeds in excess of what she actually owed.

Tyler, who is now 94 years old, purchased the Minneapolis-area condo in 1999. But a series of events, including a neighborhood shooting, prompted her to relocate to a retirement community in 2010, at which point it became difficult for her to pay both her new rent and the property taxes on her former home. She accrued a $2,300 tax bill, which turned into an approximately $15,000 bill after the government added on $13,000 in penalties, interest, and fees. Local officials then sold the home for $40,000—and kept the remaining $25,000.

Read the whole thing — Tyler is hardly alone.