On May 20, the city will resume selling the debt of property owners who owe taxes or water, sewer and emergency repair charges—the first lien sale since the pandemic struck. But recent reforms mean homeowners have more options, and more avenues to seek help.

Home in Brooklyn. (Adi Talwar/City Limits)

On May 20, New York City will resume selling the debt of property owners who owe taxes or water, sewer and emergency repair charges—but recent reforms mean homeowners have more options, and more avenues to seek help.

This year marks the first time the city has carried out the tax lien sale since it was paused during the COVID-19 pandemic. In reauthorizing it to resume, the City Council and Mayor Eric Adams passed a series of policies in 2024 intended to “alleviate financial hardship and promote housing stability for at-risk owners.”

This included the introduction of the Easy Exit Program, which allows landlords of one- to three-family homes or condos to delay their inclusion in the sale for up to a year, as long as they live at the residence and meet certain income requirements.

The city also allocated $2 million for outreach and education to homeowners at risk. This includes a partnership with the Center for NYC Neighborhoods, which is offering free, one-on-one sessions with certified housing counselors and attorneys.

“It’s not too late right now,” said Kevin Wolfe, the group’s senior government affairs manager. “There are so many different options for the homeowners that are built into the system, and there may even be other options for you to get financial relief that you’re not aware of.”

This includes potential exemptions for senior citizens, veterans, disabled homeowners and nonprofits, as well as three different payment plan options.

“We encourage them to to reach out to us, talk to us, go over their situation, and then we can help them with a variety of options to work out the best way to get off the lien sale,” Wolfe said.

City Limits sat down with Wolfe to talk more about the history of the lien sale, how it works and what at risk owners should know about the process.

This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity.

What is the tax lien sale, and how did it get started in New York City?

The tax lien sale is the mechanism that New York City uses in order to basically collect delinquent taxes, water debt or municipal debt from from [the Department of Housing Preservation and Development] called the emergency repair liens.

They have certain thresholds that change from year to year. If your taxes have been late for a certain amount of time, or you owe a certain amount of taxes, water debt, or your emergency repair lien is too high…it will turn into a lien. The lien is not recorded on your property, but it is a lien, and at a certain point, your lien will be eligible to be sold on the tax lien sale.

Basically what happens is, the city will sell the lien to a trust; a private investor cannot buy a lien. They sell the lien to the trust, and then the trust basically handles the servicing of the debt, and they will have a third party servicer a lot of times. What will typically happen if the lien is still not paid off after it’s sold, the trust will foreclose the property and they will go through a tax foreclosure process—that’s the process where you lose your home. But different from mortgage foreclosure, tax foreclosure is very hard to defeat. There are far fewer defenses.

New York has not had a lien sale forever. The lien sale originated in the 1990s under the Giuliani era, where there were a lot of properties that were vacant, that were abandoned, that tax delinquency was a big issue [with], and the city really financially had gone through a lot of struggles in order to pay its debts.

The Department of Finance says…that in order for the city to borrow funds from the bond market, they need to have stable sources of revenue. And the bond market needs to see that if New York City says, ‘Well, we have property taxes, and that’s one of our revenue sources’—they need to see that they have enforcement mechanisms to actually collect on the property taxes due. And so the lien sale is that mechanism, and that’s one of the things that gives the bond market confidence and can lower the city’s borrowing costs and increase the amount that the city can borrow from year to year.

How might a homeowner find themselves on the tax lien sale list?

Homeowners are disproportionately on the tax lien sale. About 42 percent of the properties on the lien sale are tax class 1 properties [one-, two- or three-family homes].

We are seeing a plurality of the homes that are on the lien sale are actually water debt, it’s not taxes. If you have a large apartment building and the landlord’s not paying the water and you shut [it] off, then you’ve got to be on the nightly news about how the tenants don’t have water. The city doesn’t want to be in that situation, and so what they’ve done instead is sell the lien. And so it gets homeowners caught up who just cannot afford the water bill.

This is not instances where somebody is $200 behind. You have to be thousands of dollars behind in debt. Very rarely do you have somebody who’s just using $10,000 worth of water every year—typically what will happen is that there’s a major leak. New York’s homes are old; a disproportionate amount of our homes are were built before World War II compared to the rest of the country. These are big pipes, and so if they burst, you have a huge amount of water that’s coming out, and your bills can easily escalate.

Most of these homeowners don’t have a mortgage. You hear a lot in many of the neighborhoods, “I’m house rich, but cash poor.” This is that type of situation where the house is valuable, but the the homeowner does not have the money to pay the taxes, and in many cases, has a tough time accessing capital and unlocking the equity in their home for a variety of reasons.

The tax lien program has been heavily criticized for disproportionately impacting certain communities. What has that impact looked like previously?

The lien sale is very concentrated in who it actually impacts. In majority Black neighborhoods, you’re six times more likely to have a lien sold on your property than a majority white neighborhood; majority Hispanic, Latino [neighborhoods] are twice as likely than a white neighborhood.

If you look at the map—we actually have a tax lien tracker on our website—you could overlay those historic maps where it says “redlining”—it’s the same neighborhoods we’re talking about. Bedford-Stuyvesant, Crown Heights, Flatbush, East New York is a huge neighborhood, the central Brooklyn neighborhoods, Southeast Queens, Jamaica, Hollis, St. Albans. It’s the same areas that historically were redlined, it’s the same areas that were targeted, that had racial predatory lending. It’s the same areas that have suffered from discrimination for decades, almost a century.

As we already mentioned, the city passed policies last year aimed at protecting small homeowners at risk. Are there further reforms you think lawmakers should pursue?

Long term, we would want to see the lien sale abolished for homeowners, for our one- to three- family tax Class 1 homeowners, even with water debt.

This has unfortunately been an instrument of displacement…we’re trying to change that inequity. We totally understand, “I’ve got a big building in midtown or downtown, I’m a slumlord”—that type of thing should not be excused, and the city should make every effort to collect the debt on those properties. But when you’re talking about someone’s home, it’s an entirely different situation.

The reason why people are not paying the loans, the typical reason, is they have a hardship. They have a fixed income. These are senior citizens. They’re in medical debt. Perhaps there was a death in the family and they lost the income. We’ve never come across somebody who’s just like, “I don’t want to pay my taxes.” Everyone wants to figure out how to rectify the situation—nobody’s hiding money. You’re talking about low- to moderate-income people who don’t have the economic means to pay their debt. We want to change that situation and come up with a more equitable way so the city is collecting their debts without displacing homeowners.

Is there anything else people should know?

There are a lot of scams. One of the unfortunate things is that the list of homeowners on the lien sale is made public. Even though New York City does not sell its liens to private investors like Texas, they do make the list public.

What will happen is that you’ll have people who go door knocking and…they’ll scam the homeowner. Again, these are very, very valuable pieces of property, and the scammers know it.

So we definitely encourage homeowners, before you make any decisions on it, to reach out, and get advice from a lawyer.

To reach the editor, contact Jeanmarie@citylimits.org

Want to republish this story? Find City Limits’ reprint policy here.

The post NYC’s Tax Lien Sale is Back. Here’s What You Need to Know. appeared first on City Limits.

By FATIMA HUSSEIN and CHRIS MEGERIAN

WASHINGTON (AP) — Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent leveled harsh criticism at the operations of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund on Wednesday even as he tried to reassure nervous investors that the United States would maintain its global leadership role.

“America first does not mean America alone,” he said in a speech to the Institute of International Finance. “To the contrary, it is a call for deeper collaboration and mutual respect among trade partners.”

Although Bessent said the IMF and the World Bank are “falling short,” he stopped short of calling for the U.S. to withdraw from the institutions as some conservatives have advocated.

It was the latest example of how Bessent, a former hedge fund manager who keeps a close eye on the financial markets, has tried to calm the economic turmoil as President Donald Trump tries to rewire international trade through aggressive tariffs.

After Bessent’s remarks, reporters asked him about a Wall Street Journal article that said the huge U.S. tariffs that the Republican president has levied on China could be cut in half, citing unidentified people familiar with the matter.

Bessent said: “I’d be surprised if that discussion is happening.” However, he said he expects “there’d have to be a de-escalation” from Washington and Beijing’s trade confrontation.

Trump had said on Tuesday that the 145% tariffs on China could “come down substantially.” And then on Wednesday, he told reporters that “everybody wants to be a part of what we’re doing” and “everyone’s going to be happy.”

Bessent’s speech in Washington represented a broadside against the IMF and the World Bank, which provide loans and other financial support around the world.

He said the Trump administration “will leverage U.S. leadership and influence at these institutions and push them to accomplish their important mandates.”

Some of Bessent’s criticisms echoed the Trump administration’s efforts to root out progressive ideology from federal institutions. Bessent said the IMF “has suffered from mission creep” and “devotes disproportionate time and resources to work on climate change, gender and social issues.”

He said there were similar problems at the World Bank, which he said “should no longer expect blank checks for vapid, buzzword-centric marketing accompanied by half-hearted commitments to reform.”

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One of the problems, Bessent said, is that China is still treated like a developing country, which gives it more favorable treatment from global institutions. With China as the second-largest economy in the world, he said, “it’s an adult economy.”

Despite growing friction between Beijing and Washington, Bessent said “there is an opportunity for a big deal here.”

Bessent wants the U.S. to boost manufacturing while China increases consumption, making its economy less reliant on flooding the globe with cheap exports.

“If they want to rebalance, let’s do it together,” he said. “This is an incredible opportunity.”

Beijing said Wednesday that “exerting pressure is not the right way to deal with China and simply will not work.”

Associated Press reporters Didi Tang and Michelle Price contributed to this report.

Fans of “Shark Tank” probably recall the 2022 episode with Umaro Foods, a Berkeley company that makes vegan bacon out of seaweed. Investor Robert Herjavec put a slice of the product in his mouth and promptly spit it out – not into a napkin, just on his plate – with a loud “ugh.”

Beth Zotter, CEO of Umaro, recalls dying on the inside at that moment. “Oh yeah — but I don’t think it showed up in my expression,” she says.

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Zotter wound up having the last laugh on “Shark Tank.” Mark Cuban liked the plant-based bacon and plopped down a $1 million investment in Umaro, which Zotter co-founded with plant biologist Amanda Stiles in 2019. By 2024, the company was gross-margin positive with $1 million in annual-recurring revenue. Today, you can find its applewood bacon in Whole Foods stores across California. Even the NBA’s Chris Paul, a vegan, is now an investor.

Seaweed might not be the first thing you think about sidling up on a plate with fried eggs and hash browns. But it’s high in protein, one of fastest-growing plants on earth and requires no land, fresh water or fertilizer. As the world’s food-supply chain gets ever-more stressed – a result of climate change, population growth, unpopular tariffs and the like – it’s being seen as a viable future food, in the vein of cell-cultured meat and cricket flour.

Umaro still makes bacon, but its bigger business is refining seaweeds like kelp via a proprietary process into proteins and high-value ingredients. Soon, it might also move into biodegradable packaging. Zotter recently took a few minutes to chat about what’s on the horizon.

Q: What’s the best way to describe what Umaro does?

A: We’re not a plant-based meat company. We’re a seaweed-refining company. We figured out a way to unlock the individual molecules in seaweed for higher-value applications. Our process actually produces two products: One is protein and the other is alginate.

Q: What’s the protein used for?

A: What is really popular right now, and I just don’t see any signs of it abating, is protein enrichment. You see protein-enriched pastas and crackers, so I’m excited to work with partners who want to use this ingredient to make things like dumplings and noodles. A lot of people are trying to get more protein into their diets, sort of a result of the GLP-1 and keto diets. They’re like, “If you’re going to eat pasta, at least get some more protein in there and make it nutritionally balanced.”

And the global market of protein is about $25 billion for protein ingredients, isolates and concentrates.

Umaro Foods CEO Beth Zotter holds a container of kelp in her right hand and a container of kelp protein powder in her left while at Bakar BioEnginuity Hub & Bakar Labs in Berkeley, Calif., on Monday, March 24, 2025. Umaro makes bacon and other products out of seaweed. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)

Q: What’s this alginate stuff?

A: It’s a specialty chemical worth a lot of money – like, $20,000 a ton. Alginate is usually added as an ingredient into things you wouldn’t notice. It’s also used for the casings of sausages, so it makes a good, clear film. I don’t know if we’ll actually get this grant or if it will be canceled (by the current administration), but we recently won an award from the Department of Energy to use our alginate to make a biodegradable plastic film. Our partner on that award is (the San Leandro startup) Sway.

Q: Let’s talk about your bacon, because it’s served in about 500 restaurants nationwide – including the Bay Area’s Roam Artisan Burgers – and people seem to enjoy it. What makes it popular?

A: Our innovation is that we’ve used seaweed to encapsulate and contain a whole lot of fat. There’s a lot of really bad vegan bacon out there. Most of the other products are sort of like soggy, soy-based flab. But we’ve figured out a way to use seaweed gels to essentially make a solid, crispy fat analog that delivers a lot of flavor, because fat is where most of the flavor molecules hang out.

Q: This is not a health food?

A: It has a lot of fat, like bacon, but no cholesterol. We do not try to say it’s healthy. It’s just better than bacon…. It is shelf-stable, because it has a low moisture content. A lot of chefs really appreciate that they don’t have to use cold storage for the products. It’s also easy to cook, at two minutes in an air fryer, so in terms of convenience that’s another win.

Q: Where do you see seaweed fitting in with the future of food?

A: We see that climate change is driving major disruptions in water availability, as the weather patterns change. You’ve got increasing droughts and increasing flooding, coupled with extreme heat, which puts even more water stress on crops. That’s just going to be even more of a risk to the stability of our food supply. Drawing more of our protein and macronutrients from the ocean is essentially a risk-mitigation strategy.

Q: Is climate change a threat to seaweed farming?

A: Rising sea temperatures are the biggest threats. But like all the other crops, there are major breeding programs in place to create temperature-tolerant strains of seaweed.

Q: Where do you get the raw ingredients? The California coastline?

Umaro Foods CEO Beth Zotter holds a package of Umaro bacon while at Bakar BioEnginuity Hub & Bakar Labs in Berkeley, Calif., on Monday, March 24, 2025. Umaro makes bacon and other products out of seaweed. (Jose Carlos Fajardo/Bay Area News Group)

A: Seaweed is a very big industry in Asia, and that’s where we get it for now. Eventually, we would like to source from North America. But right now, the supply chain in Asia is much more mature and able to supply the volumes that we need to scale.

What’s compelling about seaweed is that it’s already a commodity. It’s already grown at commercial scale and large volume – 20 million tons a year. What we’re doing that no one else figured out how to do is to refine it into ingredients to allow it to be used in a much larger variety of food products. Especially in the Western world, some people don’t find seaweed very palatable, so by separating it into its protein and other components, we can more easily integrate it into food products.

Q: It sounds nicer than eating insects, at least?

A: I do hope we’re eating more cricket protein in the future. In terms of consumer perception, seaweed is considered to have a “health halo” so people feel healthy when they eat it. So we have that going for us.

Beth Zotter

Age: 47Position: Cofounder and CEO of Umaro FoodsEducation: B.A. Harvard University in environmental science/public policy; M.S. UC Berkeley in energy and resourcesResidence: Albany

Five things about Beth

1. She grew up in Fairfax, Virginia.2. She likes soccer and snowboarding, plus surfing when she gets the chance.3. She’s vegetarian and doesn’t like cooking: “Trader Joe’s pre-cooked lentils are one of my go-tos.”4. She helped build a seaweed farm off the coast of Maine, which survived 20-foot waves during a Nor’easter.5. She likes watching sci-fi shows like “Black Mirror”: “More and more I see reality replicating sci-fi, so I’ve become more of a sci-fi fan.”

By DAMIAN J. TROISE, AP Business Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — Uncertainty over tariffs and an unpredictable trade war is weighing heavily on companies as they report their latest financial results and try to give investors financial forecasts.

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Some tariffs remain in place against key U.S. trading partners, but others have been postponed to give nations time to negotiate. The tariff and trade picture has been shifting for months, sometimes changing drastically on a daily basis. Those shifts make it difficult for companies and investors to make a reliable assessment of any impact to costs and sales.

On Tuesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said he expects a “de-escalation” in the trade war between the U.S. and China, but cautioned that talks between the two sides had yet to formally start.

Here’s how several big companies are dealing with the tariff confusion:

Tesla

Tesla is in a better position than most car companies to deal with tariffs because it makes most of its U.S. cars domestically. But it still sources materials from other nations and will face import taxes.

The bigger impact will be seen in the company’s energy business. The company said the impact will be “outsized” because it sources LFP battery cells from China.

The broader trade war could also hurt the company as China, the world’s largest electric vehicle market, retaliates against the U.S. Tesla was forced earlier this month to stop taking orders from mainland customers for two models, its Model S and Model X. It makes the Model Y and Model 3 for the Chinese market at its factory in Shanghai.

CEO Elon Musk, an adviser to President Donald Trump, on Tuesday reiterated that he believes “lower tariffs are generally a good idea for prosperity.” But he added that ultimately the president decides on what tariffs to impose.

Akzo Nobel

The Amsterdam-based maker of paints and coatings for industrial and commercial use said the big risk from tariffs could come in the form of lower demand for its products.

The company said almost all sales of finished goods in the U.S. were locally produced, with the majority of raw materials locally sourced.

“Over the years, we deliberately localized both our procurement and production in the U.S.,” said CEO Gregoire Poux-Guillaume, in a conference call with analysts. “We also largely run China for China and use the rest of Asia instead as an export base.”

The company’s products range from paints and coatings for the automotive industry to the do-it-yourself homeowner. Broader tariffs could squeeze consumers and businesses and hurt sales.

Boston Scientific

The medical device maker said it expects most of the effecs of tariffs to hit the company during the second half of the year, but that it can absorb the impact.

The company raised its earnings and revenue forecasts for the year, despite the tariffs. It estimates a $200 million impact from tariffs in 2025, but said it can offset that through higher sales and reductions in discretionary spending.

The company said it has a long-standing supply chain around the globe and has made significant investments in the U.S.

Boeing

Boeing said much of its supply chain is in the U.S. and many of its imports from Canada and Mexico are exempt from tariffs under an existing trade agreement.

The company does have suppliers in Japan and Italy, but it expects to recover those tariff costs. The net annual cost of higher tariffs on the supply chain is less than $500 million.

A bigger concern is the potential for retaliatory tariffs, which could impact its ability to deliver aircraft. China, a key target for U.S. tariffs, has retaliated in part by no longer accepting deliveries of Boeing aircraft.

AT&T

AT&T, like its peers in the telecommunications sector, faces higher costs for cellphones and other equipment.

The company said it believes it can manage anticipated higher costs, based on the current pause in some tariffs and its supply chain.

“The magnitude of any increase will depend on a variety of factors, including how much of the tariffs the vendors pass on, the impact that the tariffs have on consumer and business demand,” said CEO John Stankey, on a conference call with analysts.