Detroit Free Press Editorial Board

A Wayne County resident with property in tax foreclosure shouldn't have to wonder if the county treasurer chose to seize his or her home because the treasurer's relatives wanted to buy it.

But that's exactly the question raised by a series of problematic real estate transactions conducted by members of Wayne County Treasurer Eric Sabree's family.

And that's why Sabree's can't continue to lead the county treasurer's office, much less oversee the tax foreclosure auction he is charged with fairly administering.

Sabree's wife and a company the couple co-founded bought tax-foreclosed properties through an auction his office oversees, Sabree told a Free Press reporter last week, some in violation of a county policy that bars employees of the treasurer's office or members of their families from bidding on properties auctioned by the county.

There's more: Sabree's relatives, including his sons, the treasurer confessed, accrued more than $58,000 in unpaid taxes on the properties they'd purchased, with $3,400 in delinquent taxes outstanding as recently as Friday. The larger sum, records show, was paid off late last year, but taxes on some properties had been delinquent long enough that they could have been foreclosed.

More:Wayne County treasurer's family bought tax-foreclosed properties

Nancy Kaffer:Michigan should make these changes to help people keep their homes

Nancy Kaffer:Wayne County Tax Auction: Why the treasurer should stop holding it

Sabree, who contacted the Free Press after learning that The Detroit News was investigating the transactions, offered a litany of excuses: He wasn't personally involved in the transactions, he didn't think it was a big deal, he didn't know the extent of his family's delinquent taxes until his wife was injured in 2016.

How does Sabree plan to cure mess he's in? The treasurer told Free Press reporter Jennifer Dixon that the rules barring county treasurer's office employees and their family members from bidding in the auction — rules intended to guard against conflicts of interest — are "intrusive and unrealistic," and says he plans to change them.

That's right: After getting caught violating the county's ethical guidelines — remember that he copped to those violations only after learning that another media organization was preparing to disclose them — Sabree's proposed solution is to relax the rules, not modify his behavior to conform to them.

The taxpayers who pay his salary should not put up with such self-serving nonsense.

More:Detroit real estate game creates chaos in neighborhoods

Guest column:Government can stop tax foreclosure

The tax-auction transactions date back to 2008, when Sabree was a top attorney for Wayne County.

He wasn't subject to the rules that prohibit him and his relatives from bidding on foreclosure auction properties until 2011, when he became Wayne County's assistant treasurer, but some of the auction purchases took place after that. Sabree became Wayne County Treasurer in 2016.

Sabree says he wasn't involved personally in any of the transactions, even though some purchases were made through their jointly owned company.

Wayne County's tax foreclosure auction has done untold damage to the city of Detroit. Around 150,000 Detroit homes were foreclosed for delinquent taxes between 2005 and 2017, Detroit data firm Loveland found, nearly one third of all the properties in the city. Tens of thousands of homes, some of them occupied, have been auctioned during that span. At least 10,000 of those homes shouldn't have been foreclosed; their owners were eligible for a poverty exemption and shouldn't have had to pay property tax at all.

It's not always clear why some tax-delinquent properties are foreclosed and auctioned, and others aren't. These are decisions the treasurer's office makes behind closed doors.

The intent of the auction is to return properties whose owners haven't their paid taxes to the tax rolls, a policy lawmakers presumed would hasten re-development in places like Detroit. But the auction hasn't worked that way. Many auctioned properties become vacant and fall into disrepair, and, as in the case of Sabree's family, some successful bidders quickly fall behind on their own taxes.

State law requires counties to hold a tax-foreclosure auction each year. Sabree himself has said he wouldn't hold it, otherwise. The auction, he told the Free Press last year, isn't best way to manage tax-delinquent property or serve the community.

Now it's apparent that Sabree's own conduct has fallen short of the same standard. He has forfeited the trust of his employers, and he should step down as soon as arrangements for a smooth succession can be made.