A lawsuit against the village of Orleans was settled this week

A lawsuit against the village of Orleans was settled this week with the municipality agreeing to return a house it had acquired via tax sale to the former owner.  Represented by Vermont Legal Aid, Penny Flynn sued the town of Barton and the village of Orleans, claiming her home at 7 School St. was unconstitutionally taken via tax sale without compensation. Flynn asked for money equal to the property’s fair market value minus taxes and utilitites which was owed and unpaid at the time of the tax sale. Following an accumulation of unpaid taxes and utility payments that totaled almost 15 thousand dollars, the town put the property up for tax sale in May 2021. Flynn, who spends colder months in Florida, claims in her complaint that she received no notice of the April tax sale, and it wasn’t until she got back to Vermont in May 2022 that she learned of the 2022 tax sale. The settlement instead results in the return of the property to Flynn.