Proceeds after tax-foreclosure sales; Rafaeli, LLC v Oakland Cnty; Exclusivity of MCL 211.78t; Whether deadlines under MCL 211.78t(2) & (4) violate due process; Taking claim; Whether deadlines under MCL 211.78t are tolled by application of the death-saving provision (MCL 600.5852(1)); Unjust enrichment; n re Petition of Barry Cnty Treasurer for Foreclosure; In re Petition of Muskegon Cnty Treasurer for Foreclosure; The General Property Tax Act (GPTA)

The court concluded the trial court did not err in “interpreting and applying MCL 211.78t(2) as the sole mechanism under which claimants could recover their surplus proceeds. The statutory scheme established by our Legislature in response to the decision in Rafaeli and followed by petitioner passes constitutional muster. Claimants failed to avail themselves of the statutory protections.” Thus, they failed to enforce their constitutional rights. The court affirmed the trial “court’s orders denying their motions for distribution of proceeds remaining after the tax-foreclosure sales of their properties and the satisfaction of their tax debts and related costs.” Claimants asserted “that the trial court erred when it interpreted and applied MCL 211.78t as the exclusive means of recovering the proceeds that remained from the tax-foreclosure sales of their properties after their tax debts and associated costs were paid.” They contended “that alternate means of recovering proceeds is suggested by: (1) the difference between Rafaeli’s ‘surplus proceeds’ and the statute’s ‘remaining proceeds,’ and (2) MCL 211.78t(12)’s definition of ‘claimants,’ as a subset of foreclosed property owners, when read together with the permissive ‘may’ in MCL 211.78t(1).” Based on these differences, they argued “that, even if MCL 211.78t is the exclusive means for recovering remaining proceeds if they choose to do so, there still exist alternate means for foreclosed property owners to recover surplus proceeds.” But as the court explained in Muskegon Cnty, “to the extent that claimants assert an ambiguity between ‘remaining proceeds’ and ‘surplus proceeds,’ this argument is actually aimed at whether 2020 PA 256 addressed the constitutional infirmity of the prior GPTA; it has ‘no bearing on the separate question of whether our Legislature intended its amendment [to the GPTA] to be the exclusive mechanism for a former property owner to pursue a constitutional claim.’” The court also rejected “claimants’ interpretation of the use of ‘may’ in MCL 211.78t(1) as signaling an alternate means of recovering remaining proceeds. Rather, it acknowledges that there are valid reasons why former property owners might exercise their discretion by not submitting Form 5743.” Like the respondents in Muskegon Cnty, claimants here erred “by assuming ‘that the alternative to pursuing a claim under MCL 211.78t was to pursue a claim by some other means—rather, their alternative was not to claim an interest in the foreclosed property in the first place.’”