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Presidio Terrace is a gated, privately owned street with a
distinctive circular shape in the neighborhood of the same name,
home to some of San Francisco’s most expensive and exclusive
abodes.

But little did its tony residents realize the city sold the
entire thing out from under them two years ago.

That’s the story as the San Francisco Chronicle tells it: Turns
out the Presidio Terrace Association neglected to pay taxes on
its private pavement for some 30 years. So City Hall put the
street—that is, the actual street and sidewalks—up for auction
in 2015.

The winning bid from an investor/engineer South Bay couple came
to just over $90,000—barely enough to buy the front door of any
of the multimillion-dollar homes in the neighborhood, but also
almost a hundred times the sum of the delinquent taxes.

It seems that Presidio Terrace neighbors weren’t aware of the
auction, the sale, or the tax bill until earlier this year. And
the street fee that they failed to pay for all of those years?
Less than $14 annually.

Amazingly, all of this really did happen, at least according to
the lawsuit that the Presidio Terrace Association filed against
their new landlords, Tina Lam and Michael Cheng, in July.

In the complaint, homeowners note that the association has owned
and maintained the O-shaped avenue since 1905. So why’d they
drop the ball paying the tax man? According to the suit:

“The Association has not paid those taxes because the City has
been sending the property tax bills to the Association at the
following address: 47 Kearny Street. [...] Which is not the
address of the association or any member.

“After research, the Association is informed and believes that
this address was associated with an accountant who last
performed work for the Association in the 1980s. [...No] member
of the Association was aware that property taxes has not been
paid.”
The Kearny Street address belongs to the property management
company Hanford Freund. Nobody at HF was immediately available
for comment.

Update: HF’s Senior Vice President Timothy Falvey told Curbed SF
that his company never dealt with the Presidio Terrace
Association, in spite of the cited address.

“Handford Freund has never managed the Presidio Homeowners
Association or whatever it may be named. I’ve been there for
almost 30 years and never heard any reference to it or seen
anything in our files about it, and I’m confident that my firm
has never managed it. [...] We have nothing to do with it.”

The suit further claims that the city “made no reasonable effort
to inform the Association or any of its members that the Common
Area was subject to sale” and that no one on the street found
out about it until May 30 of this year.

Neighbors hope the court will rescind the 2015 sale and return
ownership to them. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the city’s
Treasurer-Tax Collector told the Chronicle’s Matier and Ross
that the office did everything required under the law and that
everyone else in the city manages to keep their property taxes
straight.

The neighbors have also petitioned the Board of Supervisors to
reverse the sale, with a hearing set for October.

In the meantime, the street’s new owners are considering
instituting a parking fee in the neighborhood. But if
neighborhood residents aren’t keen on paying a parking fee,
that’s no problem for the street’s new owners.

Matier and Ross note: “[I]f the Presidio Terrace residents
aren't interested in paying for parking privileges, perhaps some
of their neighbors outside the gates—in a city where parking is
at a premium—would be."

https://sf.curbed.com/2017/8/7/16107160/presidio-terrace-sf- street-auction-lawsuit

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
 

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