[lukan]

"They can easily take out a reverse mortgage to pay the property tax for the rest of their lives."

Not everyone can do that easily. I would not know how that works and where are the downsides. I can learn it, sure, but for an 80 year old this would be real stress, having to figure unknown contracts out - and not getting cheated. Old people are a prime target for frauds for a reason.

[Manuel_D]

The reality is that the same thing, in effect, happens if you stop paying property taxes. The tax builds up and then when the house is sold after passing the government collects the tax before the descendants receive the sale proceeds.

This is why complaining about rising property taxes is almost never about the elderly people who actually live in the house. It's about their children that want to inherit the house without paying off their parents' property taxes.

[kgwgk]

> The reality is that …

People in different countries experience different realities.

[Manuel_D]

Not really. By definition if your property value rises by 10x you have enough money to pay the property taxes by leveraging your home. Sure, it means you'll have to sell when you die and won't be able to pass on the house to your heirs. But the meme, "elderly homeowner becomes homeless because his home became super value" is just a fiction. It's not that the homeowner can't pay the property taxes - he's got plenty of value in his home. It's really the children that want to inherit a valuable home but don't want to cover the tax back payment.

[kgwgk]

Just in case it was not clear, my comment was about

> The reality is that the same thing, in effect, happens if you stop paying property taxes. The tax builds up, etc.

and in many places worse things will happen to you if you stop paying property taxes.