American Tax Funding: Stop the Foreclosure and Auction of Mary Smith's Home in Rochester, NY

UPDATE!!

It is clear that your voices are being heard.

The power of community coming together has forced ATF to cancel the auction of Mary Smith's Home! ATF has agreed to begin negotiations.

After struggling for almost 10 years to get a fair payment plan with American Tax Funding, Mary Smith publicly stood up against ATF only 3 weeks ago. In three short weeks her 10 years of struggle has been turned around by Mary, Take Back the Land Rochester, overwhelming community support, and the support of the many signers of this petition. ATF's lawyers Phillips Lytle LLP say they have canceled the Feb. 26 auction and have promised to work out a fair deal with Mary. We are halfway to victory!

Now it's important we continue to spread Mary's story and the petition and expose ATF's practices.

1)We need to make sure ATF closes the deal with Mary so she can keep her home.
2) We need to change the City/County/ATF tax foreclosure process so these disasters never happen again. Noboby should have to go through the anguish Mary's been through.

Stay tuned for more updates. Let's keep the heat turned up! Tell your friends!

The following is from Mary Smith:

A for-profit company in Florida, American Tax Funding, is trying to throw me out of my home even though I’m willing and able to pay. I've lived here at 53 Cutler Street for 30 years, raising six children. I paid off my mortgage 12 years ago, but still they are planning to hold an auction on February the 26th to take my home and kick me out.

After years of serious health problems, I fell behind on my taxes. The City of Rochester and Monroe County then sold my taxes to a for-profit company in Florida called American Tax Funding. I'm willing and able to pay now, but rather than negotiate with me, the company is choosing to profit while I lose my home.

I want and need to get back ownership of the home that I love. My community is a major part of my life. I feel a deep commitment to my neighborhood and my neighbors. I’ve been an active member of the Cutler PLUS Community Block Club since I moved there in 1983, and am currently its vice president. I have devoted great amounts of my time to bringing together my neighbors and to helping us raise each other’s children. In doing so, I believe that I have contributed to stemming the decline in the quality of living that has afflicted many streets in this area. I want to continue to live in the community that I have nurtured and cared for. I deserve thanks, not foreclosure.

If American Tax Funding is unwilling to work out a fair settlement so I can keep my longtime home, I will be forced to launch a series of protests, with the help of Take Back the Land Rochester and my neighbors. This will shine a light on American Tax Funding’s unjust practices, and have the City and County reconsider its contract with ATF. We have already begun extensive neighborhood outreach and received many signatures on a petition that will be presented to ATF. If necessary, there will be a protest at the Feb. 26 auction and community defense of a possible eviction.