Help My Niece Keep Her House

Hello friends,

The lovely girl in the picture is my niece Katelyn. She lives in a house right through the woods behind my house, with her mom; my sister Tina. My brother and his family live next door to them, all of us in homes on family land. My dad, James, gave the house to my sister when Katelyn was 5. It's hard to know exactly how to tell this story, but the bottom line is, they are in a desperate situation. The property taxes on the house have not been paid in two years, and next month will make year number three. The back tax with penalties and interest are right at $10,000. At this point, the county will be putting up a sign in the yard announcing the pending sale of the property in mid-November and the property will go on auction in December. October 9 is the date that penalties for the 2023 taxes will start to build up. I don't want to give a lot of detail, but through the years, my sister has had severe depression, and was involved in a scam that caused her to lose a large sum of money. But I want to be totally transparent and say, the trouble she is in is mostly of her own making, and comes from years of not working, coupled with multiple bad life and financial decisions. For several reasons, I had decided I would not help her. But my niece is out there working two jobs and shoulders all of the financial burden. From the time she was young, there has been a "role reversal" and Katelyn does everything she can to take care of herself and her mom, but it has just been too much. Katelyn did not realize what a dire situation the taxes had become and this has been a devastating blow to her. Bottom line..if a 25% down payment is made, (around $2500) she can make monthly payments for two years, but they will be around $650. That is completely impossible for her. The higher the down payment, the lower the monthly payment. I cannot see my niece homeless. And at the end of the day, my sister is my sister, and if there is something I can do to keep them from literally being out on the street, I have to try. I'd love to raise all I can, but, if I can raise at least $5000, that would cut the monthly payment in half. I think I can work with Katelyn on learning how to budget, and it would be hard, but I think she could handle a payment in the mid-300s. Selling the property is not an option; along with the time sensitive nature of the deadline, the house is in a bad state of disrepair. They would never be able to maintain paying rent to live anywhere else and moving in with someone is also not an option. It is seriously a matter of figuring out the money or them both being with no place to live, and losing the home my dad gave them. This is weighing so heavy on Katelyn, me and Jeff, and my brother and sis-in-law. Asking our friends for help with this....not something I wanted to do, and not something I take lightly. But if ever the saying desperate times call for desperate measures was appropriate, this is that time. Should you decide to help, we would be grateful beyond what you can ever know. There are a lot of complicated layers to this story, and if you feel led to help, but want more detail, I can share that with you privately.