BALTIMORE — How do you pay a bill you never received? That's what Bryan Burkert wants to know.
He's the owner of The Sound Garden in Fells Point, and last week, he got a call from his lawyer: his property had been sold in a tax sale.
"It's my life's work. For about 24 hours, I thought I lost this building."
This was the first Burkert was hearing of it. He says he received no notice from the city that he had any unpaid taxes, or that his property was up for sale.
"$1,500. And we would've lost a 30 year business, 20 employees. And you know, this is a well-known spot in Baltimore City. We do a lot," Burkert said.
Burkert went to city hall to find out what was going on. Turns out he owed money for something called a Special Benefits District Surcharge.
Businesses in certain areas agree to pay extra tax dollars to receive extra benefits - like cleaning, and security.
"They have a portal to pay the bills and when you go to the portal, there's a specific space for a special benefits district surcharge, and when you click on that and you put your address in, nothing comes up. So we had no way of knowing this bill existed," Burkert said.
He's right. We checked. There's only one bill listed for 2023-2024, which is listed as already paid.
Nothing for any previous year.
"We could've lost everything with no notice, zero notice. I mean, the city's gotta fix their online portal. You can't have an online portal and not have a bill to look at."
His city council member is on his side. Councilman Zeke Cohen tells us he believes tax sales are archaic and predatory to begin with, but at the very least, the city needs to modernize its payment systems and make them more user friendly. He's raised his concerns with the Department of Finance and the Mayor, who he says appear to be on board with addressing the issue.
Burkert says he was lucky enough that his attorney alerted him, and he was able to pay the almost $900 it cost to reclaim his property, but he doesn't want any other business owner to go through this.
