A Mobile County man who wants to fix up a dilapidated home is caught in a unique legal problem: The city of Mobile could tear down the blighted property before he can legally access it to fix it up. It's all due to a change in state law and the rights of those who buy property tax liens in Mobile County.

"If y'all go to demolish the house, we lose our investment that we have invested in the tax liens on this property," said David Helland.

Helland says he purchased the tax lien for the unoccupied home on Lees Lane in an auction in 2020, two years after the state law related to tax lien sales changed. Now, in Mobile County and other counties that elect to follow the new auction process, people who purchase tax liens do not have right to enter the property and make repairs until they own it. That process takes at least three years.

"We're getting the deed on it in four months," said Helland.

Helland asked Mobile city council members for more time. Last week, the council decided to give Helland an additional 60 days and did not vote to tear it down the home, for now.

"He is in a rock and a hard place, just how the statute is designed right now," said Mobile County Revenue Commission Attorney Baxter Bishop.

Bishop says they follow the new auction method because it makes it easier for people to redeem properties. Bishop says the new process also reduces predatory behavior and protects property owners.

"One of the one of the main predatory methods there was, in the old method, you've got what is allowable by statute called the over bid," said Bishop.

That allows investors to bid and pay thousands more than the lien or delinquent taxes owed, forcing an already strapped homeowner to cough up even more money to redeem their property. It also stops investors from spending lots of money on improvements and passing that cost on to the property owner in order to redeem it. But Mobile Chief of Staff James Barber says there’s an unintended consequence to the change in law for investors like Helland, who help the city by fixing up blighted properties.

"We need to get with state legislators and correct this tax lien issue and the right of entry. So any assistance that we can provide him because this is absolutely not his fault. It's a glitch within the law itself that we need to correct in Montgomery," said Barber.

Bishop says there are signs the new law has helped people because redemption rates rose. The redemption rate for parcels auctioned in 2018, the year the law changed, is 79%. The redemption rate for 2019 is 88%.