There is so much packed into those 3 sentences. And so much missing.
Did she just leave the condo unoccupied? If she was never going to return, she should have sold it right away. Or at least rented it out to cover the carrying costs.
And $2300 in taxes ballooning into an additional 12K in penalties meant that she let this linger for quite a while. That’s a HUGE amount of penalties. Almost 6x the actual tax bill. Clearly she brought the financial problem on herself.
Again, this does not justify the government keeping the remaining equity. Not in the least.
