[obsurveyor]

Presumably they were contacted but the home owners association failed to keep an up-to-date mailing address with the tax authority. It's not the city's responsibility to determine if mailing addresses are accurate, especially for a three decade tax bill of less than $1000.

[kbenson]

> It's not the city's responsibility to determine if mailing addresses are accurate, especially for a three decade tax bill of less than $1000.

I'm not so sure. If a property that is held in common is going to be sold, perhaps a good faith effort to contact the property owners requires a bit more effort, regardless of whether the amount due is small. The sale price was $90k.

[mr_turtle]

Pretty much this. This story is a bit click-baity with the details summarized as a comedy of errors. I love Matier and Ross as much as anyone else, but they really should have dove into this more. It's absurdly silly if SF had no contact with any of the residents of 30 years and just out of the blue decided to auction the rights to the street.

As for the winner, kudos to him. Now he'll either settle for a significant amount of court, or mired in years of civil trial.