Heated hearing on HB 1586: sponsor seeks up to $5,000 primary residence credit and foreclosure changes

Representative Lori Van Winkle introduced House Bill 1586 to provide up to $5,000 of property tax relief for primary residences and to modify enforcement tools for delinquent property taxes, including removing foreclosure of tax liens for primary residences while preserving lien remedies.

Van Winkle said she modeled the bill after the previously enacted $500 credit and expanded eligibility to include owners with property held in trusts; she said the bill’s purpose is to provide substantial relief and prevent primary residences from being lost over unpaid property taxes. She invoked constitutional language during testimony, citing Article 10, Section 1 and Article 10, Section 5 of the state constitution in support of legislative authority to act on property taxation.

The bill drew both strong support and strong opposition. Representative Jeff Hoverson and other supporters argued a larger, meaningful credit (Van Winkle’s $5,000 proposal was cited repeatedly) would satisfy calls for relief and could reduce political pressure for ballot measures. Supporters also argued some of the revenue replacement could be offset by economic effects they described using Laffer‑curve reasoning.

Opponents raised immediate fiscal and administrative concerns. Stephanie Ingebretsen of the North Dakota League of Cities said multiple bill sections create new lien rules and asked how those provisions would work on property transfers; Linda Swihovic of the North Dakota Association of Counties testified that historical county foreclosure data showed relatively few occupied homes ever reached foreclosure but warned that removing foreclosure as an enforcement tool could disincentivize payment and shift costs to other taxpayers.

Committee members asked about fiscal impacts. Representative Olson pointed to the fiscal note in the packet and said its estimate appeared extremely large; Representative Van Winkle and supporters disputed or sought to clarify the figures in the hearing record—Van Winkle said prior analysis estimated about $2 billion to abolish property tax entirely, and witnesses debated the scale and sources of revenue replacement. The hearing record shows no committee action on HB 1586 during this session’s hearing and that the bill generated substantive disagreement over fiscal feasibility and enforcement consequences.

Ending: The committee closed the hearing after extensive testimony and questions; counties and municipal groups asked for more precise fiscal analysis and warned of unintended consequences to tax administration and local budgets if foreclosure remedies for primary residences were eliminated.