This page is descriptive legal research. It does not claim that property taxation itself is unconstitutional, and Untax the Roof's own position - that property tax should be abolished - rests on policy grounds, not on a claim that current law already requires it.
Tyler v. Hennepin County, 598 U.S. 631 (2023)
Decided: May 25, 2023 · Official opinion
Hennepin County, Minnesota sold Geraldine Tyler's condominium for $40,000 to satisfy roughly $15,000 in property taxes, interest, and penalties - and kept the remaining $25,000. The Supreme Court held, unanimously, that Tyler plausibly alleged a violation of the Fifth Amendment's Takings Clause, because the government retained value beyond what the tax debt actually owed.
The rule from Tyler: where a tax sale produces proceeds greater than the tax debt and legally collectible costs, the former owner's interest in that surplus can't be extinguished just because a state law says so.
Pung v. Isabella County, 609 U.S. 30 (2026)
Decided: June 23, 2026 · Official opinion · Docket
Pung asked what "surplus" is measured against: the actual price the tax sale brought, or a hypothetical fair-market value. The Court held that, at least where the tax sale was fairly conducted under the historical tradition of tax sales, the constitutional baseline is the price the tax sale actually produced - not a hypothetical higher fair-market value. The Court also held the Eighth Amendment's Excessive Fines Clause does not require the government to pay the gap between the tax-sale price and a hypothetical fair-market value. The case was vacated and remanded on that basis.
The rule from Pung: "documented fair-market value minus tax-sale price" is a real, economically meaningful number - but after Pung it is not automatically owed as constitutional compensation. It has to be labeled separately from legally recognized surplus proceeds.
Reading the two together
For any individual case, there are at least four different, non-interchangeable numbers:
- Debt - taxes, interest, penalties, fees, and legally collectible costs.
- Sale proceeds - what the tax sale or foreclosure sale actually brought.
- Surplus proceeds - sale proceeds above the debt. This is what Tyler protects when government keeps it instead of returning it.
- Value disparity - documented assessed/appraised/fair-market value minus the sale price. Useful for economic analysis, but after Pung it is not automatically a constitutional Takings amount when the sale was fairly conducted.
Whether a given sale even qualifies as "fairly conducted" under Pung depends on facts like notice method, advertising, auction type, bidding rules, minimum bid, and whether any court found the process defective - none of which this page independently determines for any specific sale.
What neither case holds
- Neither case holds that all property-tax foreclosure is unconstitutional.
- Neither case holds that any below-market tax sale automatically creates a federal compensation claim for the market-value gap - Pung specifically forecloses that reading for fairly conducted sales.
- Tyler did not invalidate property taxation itself.
- State constitutions and state statutes may provide different or stronger protections than the federal floor described here; those are researched separately, state by state, in the enforcement-law table.
See how each state's surplus/equity rule applies this baseline →
Source: the official U.S. Supreme Court opinions linked above are the primary sources. Verified 2026-09-24.