At the District’s auctions, no one was watching. 
 
 A Washington Post investigation found that during Berman’s spectacular spending spree in the city, his companies engaged in dozens of rounds of irregular bidding similar to what federal agents had discovered in Maryland. 
 
 All told, six companies, three owned by Berman, took turns winning hundreds of liens on real estate worth $540 million through unusual back-and-forth patterns of bidding never detected by city government. 
 
 Of hundreds of participants, only those six companies stood out for bidding that was so irregular that the odds of it happening by chance were less than 1 in 1,000, according to The Post’s analysis, which was conducted with a team of economists and antitrust experts from Boston. 
 
 Once the liens were won, the companies charted an aggressive course through the District that would shake families for years to come, pressing to foreclose on homes in every ward — often over tax debts of $500 or less. 
 
 The patterns call into question the city’s vigilance in policing tax auctions at a time when the industry is under intense scrutiny, with a dozen tax lien purchasers pleading guilty to rigging auctions across the country. 
 
 “Where is the protection for people?” said Sylvia Richins, whose ailing mother’s house in Northwest Washington was targeted for foreclosure by a Berman company. “It just doesn’t seem fair or right.” 
 
 Berman, 55, who pleaded guilty in federal court in Maryland to criminal conspiracy, declined requests for comment about his activities in the District. 
 
 Officials from the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue said no purchasers have ever stepped forward with allegations of bid rigging and that federal agents in Maryland did not contact the District with concerns. 
 
 “There’s no evidence that they’re doing it here,” said deputy chief financial officer Stephen Cordi. 
 
 The tax office said the bidding patterns identified by The Post are not “sufficient to determine that there is collusion among bidders” or any quid pro quo. ||||| Note: The District no longer sells tax liens for delinquent tax bills under $1,000. Lien amounts include property taxes, penalties and interest. The District doesn’t track legal fees charged to homeowners. The estimates of legal fees is besed on a Post study of more than 200 cases. The foreclosure and court cases are through mid-2013. Source: Data from D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue and D.C. Superior Court 
 
 of those foreclosed properties were houses and apartments located mostly in minority neighborhoods 
 
 Tax lien foreclosures that have been identified by The Post 
 
 If the owner can't pay all tax bills and interest, plus the legal bills and expenses of the investor, 
 
 If the tax bill plus interest goes uncollected for six months, 
 
 The typical lien amount, just a fraction of the property's value 
 
 Property owners in the District risk losing their homes over relatively small amounts in unpaid property taxes. Here’s a look at the process: 
 
 Families have been forced to borrow or strike payment plans to save their homes. 
 
 Others weren’t as lucky. Tax lien purchasers have foreclosed on nearly 200 houses since 2005 and are now pressing to take 1,200 more, many owned free and clear by families for generations. 
 
 Investors also took storefronts, parking lots and vacant land — about 500 properties in all, or an average of one a week. In dozens of cases, the liens were less than $500. 
 
 Coleman, struggling with dementia, was among those who lost a home. His debt had snowballed to $4,999 — 37 times the original tax bill. Not only did he lose his $197,000 house, but he also was stripped of the equity because tax lien purchasers are entitled to everything, trumping even mortgage companies. 
 
 “This is destroying lives,�? said Christopher Leinberger, a distinguished scholar and research professor of urban real estate at George Washington University. 
 
 Officials at the D.C. Office of Tax and Revenue said that without tax sales, property owners wouldn’t feel compelled to pay their bills. 
 
 “The tax sale is the last resort. It’s also the first resort — it’s the only way in the statute to collect debt,�? said deputy chief financial officer Stephen Cordi. 
 
 But the District, a hotbed for the tax lien industry, has done little to shield its most vulnerable homeowners from unscrupulous operators. 
 
 Foreclosures have upended families in some of the city’s most distressed neighborhoods. Houses were taken from a housekeeper, a department store clerk, a seamstress and even the estates of dead people. The hardest hit: elderly homeowners, who were often sick or dying when tax lien purchasers seized their houses. 
 
 One 65-year-old flower shop owner lost his Northwest Washington home of 40 years after a company from Florida paid his back taxes — $1,025 — and then took the house through foreclosure while he was in hospice, dying of cancer. A 95-year-old church choir leader lost her family home to a Maryland investor over a tax debt of $44.79 while she was struggling with Alzheimer’s in a nursing home. 
 
 Other cities and states took steps to curb abuses, such as capping the fees, safeguarding houses owned by the elderly or scrapping tax sales altogether and instead collecting the money themselves. 
 
 “Where is the justice? They’re taking people’s lives,�? said Beverly Smalls, whose elderly aunt lost her home in Northeast Washington. “It’s just not right.�?
– If the math seems unbelievable, that's because it kind of is: A 76-year-old retired Marine lost the $197,000 Washington, DC, home he had paid for in full 20 years ago—and all of the equity he had in it—because of an unpaid $134 property tax bill. In the first of a three-part series titled "Homes for the Taking," the Washington Post investigates the evolution of a long-running DC lien program. Under it, a lien is slapped on a property belonging to a homeowner who hasn't paid taxes; investors essentially help the city "collect" by buying these liens at auction and charging interest. But where those investors were once of the "mom-and-pop" variety, they're now "well-financed, out-of-town companies" who charge interest for six months and can then foreclose on the property after that mark if the debt hasn't been paid; they can also slap on thousands in legal fees. The Post has found 509 such instances of foreclosure (about 200 homes, the rest commercial real estate, parking lots, and land) since 2005; in Bennie Coleman's case, his $134 bill grew into a $4,999 debt. And many of the victims are "vulnerable": Coleman is battling dementia; a 95-year-old woman in a nursing home with Alzheimer's lost her home over a $44.79 debt. "This is destroying lives," says an urban real estate professor. Click for the full story, or to read the second part, on suspicious bidding in lien auctions.