LINCOLN- Action Monday by the nation’s highest court voided two decisions of the Nebraska Supreme Court that upheld what critics have been calling state-assisted “home equity theft.” Two cases have been sent back to the Nebraska Supreme Court to be reconsidered following a decision in a similar Minnesota case. All nine justices in that case, Tyler v. Hennepin, agreed that the tax sale process in Minnesota’s Hennepin County (akin to that of Nebraska’s) was unconstitutional and violated the “takings clause.”

State Sen. John Cavanaugh called the decision a reinforcement that he and others seeking to change Nebraska's delinquent tax sale process were on the correct side. Reconsideration of the two Nebraska cases could bring good news to plaintiffs in the cases of Kevin and Terry Fair of Scottsbluff and Sandra Nieveen of Lincoln. In both cases, the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld the state’s tax sale process laws but allowed the families to stay in their homes pending the outcome of the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It has taken a long time to get to this point,” said Jennifer Gaughan, chief of legal strategy for Legal Aid of Nebraska, which represented both homeowner families in state court. “We look forward to resolving these cases and seeing justice served for our clients who have lived for years under the stress of not only the threat of homelessness but also the loss of equity in their property without any compensation — stripped of their only asset and left with nothing to be able to get another place to live.”

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