Theodore and Jean Bonds moved into their East Baltimore rowhome in 2018 as recipients of a veterans’ home giveaway.

Every year, the Adopt-A-Block organization taps one veteran to receive a newly renovated, formerly vacant house. In the Bondses’ case, their home came specially outfitted with a first-floor bathroom, a help to Theodore as he navigates life with limited mobility from spinal stenosis.

The Bondses happily adjusted to their new house, but it didn’t take long before their future was jeopardized.

A state mistake meant the Bondses’ home wasn’t categorized as their primary residence, they said. And the Bondses believed that because they were moving into housing for veterans, the exemption from property taxes Theodore earned as a disabled veteran would automatically cover the new home. It didn’t, and they would ultimately apply for it in late 2023.

As a result, the Bondses unknowingly accrued unpaid property taxes, and their home was included in the 2023 tax sale. Soon, the buyer of their debt foreclosed on the house and moved to evict them.

“I didn’t understand it,” said Theodore Bonds, a former Marine. “Nobody actually wanted to give us answers.”

The East Baltimore couple join a list of city homeowners who have endured the shock of tax sale. The state-mandated process requires counties and municipalities to sell property tax liens in a public auction.

Baltimore’s process allows third-party investors to purchase property liens over such matters as unpaid taxes and water bills, and sell them back to property owners with fees and interest. If the debts remain unpaid, the investors can move to foreclose and take possession.

It’s a labyrinthian system, but tax sale lobbyists have argued that it can help cash-strapped Baltimore recoup sorely needed revenue and take control of neglected vacant properties. But some homeowners have lost everything over small debts, sometimes even due to the city’s own mistakes.

A 2023 Banner analysis found that some 41,000 properties have cycled through the system since 2016, largely in predominantly Black neighborhoods. A small number of lien purchasers account for the majority of sales.

In the Bondses’ case, the state’s error meant Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott didn’t exclude their home from the annual tax sale auction. Since taking office in 2020, the mayor has pulled most owner-occupied households off the tax sale list each year as a way of safeguarding low-income residents from the system.

But some still fall through the cracks. The Banner’s 2023 analysis found that thousands of homes were misclassified as non-owner-occupied.

Representatives from the Maryland Department of Assessments and Taxation did not respond to a request for comment.

A federal lawsuit filed by a West Baltimore community group and a former Northwest Baltimore homeowner against the city and two lien purchasers seeks to change how Baltimore administers its annual tax sale. Filed in 2024, the case in Maryland’s U.S. District Court argues that property owners are not being properly compensated for their homes when they lose them, and questioned the constitutionality of the process.

Tax sale proponents contend that Baltimore benefits from having de-facto debt collectors and a mechanism that incentivizes payment. Most liens, they have argued, are paid back.

Scott’s office, meanwhile, has not commented on the litigation but said it has taken steps to make the tax sale more humane.

Last year, Maryland lawmakers borrowed from Baltimore and implemented tax sale reforms throughout the state. But city advocates have called for more local changes to the process, including payment plan options for people in debt, a total elimination of owner-occupied properties from the auction and more outreach to those at risk of falling behind.

The Bondses’ East Lanvale Street house had accumulated a little more than $4,100 in liens at the time of its 2023 tax sale. That year, Theodore Bonds learned his veteran’s tax exemption didn’t come with the house, and that he had to apply for it.

The exemption letter noted that Theodore couldn’t be reimbursed for taxes going all the way back to when they received the home in 2018 because he had waited too long to apply.

In 2024, the Bondses filed a motion to undo the tax sale. In their handwritten motion, they noted Theodore’s exemption.

But it was too late. The Bondses missed the window to buy back the lien and stop the foreclosure, and a judge ruled in favor of the tax lien purchaser, Epcot MD LLC.

In despair, the couple turned to a friend at a caregivers’ support group and learned about the SOS Fund, a Baltimore nonprofit that advocates for tax sale reform and provides resources to those at risk of being displaced. They quickly connected and discovered the tax form error.

The SOS Fund contacted the lien purchaser, Epcot MD, and offered to buy the house back. They reached a settlement deal for $19,000 — more than four times the amount of the original lien.

The Bondses are staying put, but they have yet to unpack the boxes they filled when they thought they had nowhere left to turn. They warned that their near-loss could have happened to anyone who doesn’t read the fine print.

“People over 60 shouldn’t have something like this happen to them,” Theodore said. “They should stop it.”