the city cashed both checks

and it's keeping the extra thirty-six hundred dollars.

When Blake Galvin sold his Anchorage home at the end of June, his bank did what banks do and paid the property taxes automatically. Three days later the sale closed. Then the title company, running a step behind, mailed the city an identical check for the same thirty-six hundred dollar bill.

The city cashed that one too. Weeks went by before Galvin even spotted the double charge, and when he asked for his money back, the answer was no.

The city's logic goes like this: property taxes belong to the land, not the person. As long as the total didn't overshoot the year's bill, there's nothing to refund. The extra check simply became the new owner's tax payment.

City hall's suggestion was that Galvin work it out with the buyer himself, since the city stays out of private real estate deals. His response was about as reasonable as it gets: he just wants to pay his fair share.

And this isn't a one-off. One longtime Anchorage agent who closes over a hundred sales a year says plenty of sellers probably got double-charged the same way and never noticed. If you've sold a house here recently, it's worth pulling the closing paperwork.