Even after the mortgage is gone, families and seniors lose houses they worked a lifetime to pay for — all because the state won’t stop taxing them into oblivion.
There was a time when paying off your mortgage meant freedom. A family would work, sacrifice, save, and when the final payment was made, they could breathe easy. The home was theirs. But in New York today, that promise is a myth. Even if you pay off your mortgage, you never truly own your home. Property taxes ensure the government always has the final claim. Miss a payment, and the state can seize the very house you thought you had earned.
Westchester: The Nation’s Highest Burden
Across Westchester County, property taxes are not just high — they are the highest in the nation. The median annual bill tops $13,800, crushing families year after year. Zillow shows dozens of foreclosure listings in Yonkers, New Rochelle, and other towns. In Tarrytown, unpaid property taxes were recently sold at a lien auction. In Yonkers, delinquent balances can spiral under 12% interest rates, turning small debts into financial quicksand. Families who thought they had secured the American Dream now find themselves one tax bill away from losing everything.
The Moral Failure of Property Taxes
So what is the point of paying off your house if the government can still take it away? Property taxes turn owners into tenants. Seniors are hit hardest. After decades of labor and sacrifice, they retire expecting security. Their mortgages are gone, but the tax bill never ends. On a fixed pension or Social Security check, an annual tax of $10,000–$14,000 is impossible to maintain. Many lose homes they worked a lifetime to pay off — not to banks, but to the government.
And the burden falls even heavier on Black families in New York. For generations, Black homeowners were locked out of fair housing markets and forced to buy in neighborhoods where property values grew slower and taxes stayed high. Today, even when they manage to buy and pay off a home, they face the same punishment: never-ending tax bills that strip away equity and generational wealth. What should be an inheritance for children and grandchildren is too often sold at a tax lien auction.
Generational wealth vanishes. Family stability collapses. Communities hollow out. Defenders of the system talk about “revenue” and “services,” but they ignore the injustice. The same government that fails to control its spending punishes the very people who built the community with endless bills. Property taxes do not measure fairness; they measure the government’s appetite.
Florida vs. New York: A Tale of Two States
The defenders of property taxes insist they are necessary for government to function. But Florida proves otherwise. Florida now has 23.4 million residents — far more than New York’s 19.9 million — yet it manages to balance its budget every year without a state property tax and without a state income tax. Florida’s average effective property tax rate is 0.91%. New York’s statewide average is nearly double at 1.72%, and in places like Mount Vernon it reaches 3.2% or more.
Florida funds its schools, healthcare, and law enforcement with a mix of sales tax, tourism revenue, and fees, all while protecting homeowners through the Homestead Exemption, which caps annual assessment increases and shields seniors from being taxed out of their homes. Meanwhile, New York, despite sky-high property and income taxes, faces a looming $34.3 billion budget shortfall through 2029 — the largest since the 2008 financial crisis.
If Florida can sustain more people with lower taxes and balanced books, then New York’s problem is not a lack of revenue — it is reckless spending and bad policy.
The Case for Abolition
Eliminating property taxes would restore the meaning of homeownership. It would allow families to say with confidence: “This house is mine.” It would protect seniors from being taxed out of their homes. It would preserve generational wealth instead of feeding it into a bottomless government account. And it would make New York competitive again by stopping the exodus of families and businesses.
Skeptics will ask: how will the state fund schools and services? The answer is not to tax people out of their homes but to restructure. Shift school funding to statewide revenue models based on income or consumption. Close loopholes that favor developers and corporations while squeezing working families. Cut waste in bloated budgets. What cannot continue is the practice of treating homeowners as permanent renters of their own property.
Mount Vernon: The Local Proof
And if you think this problem belongs only to wealthy suburbs, look closer. In Mount Vernon, the median home is valued at about $472,600, yet the average property tax bill is $13,766 a year — more than $11,000 higher than the national median. The effective tax rate here, 3.21%, far exceeds both the state and national average. For working families and seniors on fixed incomes, that’s devastating. Even modest homes come with bills that feel like a second mortgage.
Mount Vernon proves the point: this isn’t just unfair, it’s unsustainable. No matter how much you sacrifice, as long as property taxes exist, you never truly own your home. That is not freedom. That is feudalism with modern paperwork.
Because if paying off your house doesn’t mean security, then what’s the point of paying it off at all?
