A unanimous Supreme Court ruling backed Isabella County, rejecting a Michigan family's bid to force tax-foreclosure sales to return fair-market-value proceeds to owners.
Justice Samuel Alito's opinion said the constitutional baseline is the auction sale price, not what the property might fetch on the open market.
The case involved a home assessed at $194,400 that the county sold for $76,008 after the family failed to pay about $2,242 in property taxes; the justices sent the case back for review of whether the auction itself was fair.
The decision narrows homeowners' claims after the court's 2023 ruling that counties cannot keep surplus proceeds beyond unpaid taxes, interest and costs.