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What happens when a property becomes worthless? [US]

This is mostly a hypothetical question that I'm curious about.

I'm curious about what a homeowner's options are when a property becomes effectively worthless. For example there are some condos in certain major cities with very low purchase prices (<$50k) but are saddled with thousands in monthly assessments, usually a combination of high HOA fees for older buildings along with a slew of special assessments. This situation is rare but does exist. At a certain point it's conceivable that the maintenance costs might exceed the unit's rentable value, making it effectively worthless.

Or, if thinking into the distant future, properties may become worthless due to some western/southwestern cities losing most of their fresh water supply (I know that's probably extremely unlikely).

If the property has a mortgage, then obviously it will go to the bank if the owner abandons it.

If there is no mortgage and property taxes are unpaid, the home may go to the taxing authorities. In this case, what are the homeowner's additional liabilities? For example, if the city/county doesn't want to take ownership of the property because it's worthless, would the owner still be held liable in any way for the property if it's abandoned? Who decides when it's time to demolish a condo building? Are owners responsible for demolition costs?

Again, just hypotheticals I've wondered about. For an idea of some examples, search Zillow for cheap Chicago condos and you'll find some where one year in maintenance fees (sometimes >$2k/month) exceed a third of the purchase price. There's also a condo building in Honolulu that's been struck with catastrophic assessments of over $15M on top of already high fees. At some point, it makes you wonder if demolition and rebuilding is the better option financially but that's probably not viable since not all residents would agree to that and in some cases these building have a historic designation.

submitted by /u/pernambuco
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/vo1rg6/what_happens_when_a_property_becomes_worthless_us/
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