Tax foreclosure; The General Property Tax Act (GPTA); Notice requirements; MCL 211.78i(7)(c); Smith v Cliffs on the Bay Condo Ass’n (On Remand); Error in the property’s street address; Effect of failing to comply with the statutory notice requirements; MCL 211.78i(10); Due process; Sidun v Wayne Cnty Treasurer; Dow v State; Jones v Flowers; Wayne County Treasurer (WCT); The National Change of Address (NCOA) database

The court held that defendant-WCT’s service of notice in the underlying tax foreclosure proceedings complied with the requirements of minimum due process, “so its inadvertent violation of the GPTA was not fatal to” those proceedings. Thus, there was no basis here to set aside the judgment of foreclosure, and MCL 211.78l(1) barred plaintiff’s quiet title action. The court assumed “without deciding that (1) plaintiff never received actual notice of the proceedings until after the trial court had entered the judgment of foreclosure, and (2) the notice was never actually delivered to the ‘19935 Hoover’ or ‘46913 Fields’ addresses.” The required notice varies with the circumstances, “and WCT was required ‘to consider unique information about an intended recipient.’ In this case, the NCOA database indicated that plaintiff’s family had moved to 70290 Laurel Creek. There was no evidence that WCT was aware of [his] divorce or had any reason to doubt that” he lived there when “it mailed notice to that address. Considering this unique information, delivery to the Fields address arguably was no longer reasonably calculated to reach plaintiff, and the Laurel Creek address was more appropriate.” While the notice was received by the wrong person, WCT “could have reasonably assumed that the ‘K Raptoplous’ who signed for the delivery was plaintiff’s wife or another family member who would have” given it to him. The court agreed “checking for typographical errors and resending the notice to 19935 Hoover would have been a reasonable” step, but it was not “the only reasonable” one. That property is industrial, not a residence, and owned by an individual. Under the “circumstances, it was reasonable for WCT to focus its efforts on finding alternative home addresses for plaintiff instead of revisiting its attempts at service to the property subject to foreclosure.” It sent copies of the notice “via both certified and first-class mail to two other addresses that were possibly associated with” him, and published notice. Given this publication, combined with the mailings, the court held “that WCT took reasonable steps to serve the notice. That plaintiff did not receive actual notice until after the foreclosure did not render it constitutionally deficient.” The court affirmed summary disposition for WCT.