(a) The Board of Review may entertain a petition of a taxpayer for temporary relief from the payment of real estate taxes where such petition is based upon a demonstrated inability to pay. In the case of an exemption made to a person who, in the opinion of the City Assessor and the Board, by reason of poverty, is unable to contribute towards the public charges, the City Assessor and the Board shall require, as a condition to the grant of a temporary exemption, a lien and agreement for reimbursement, upon a form approved and provided by Council, which lien shall assign to the City all of the real or personal property of the beneficiary of such temporary exemption for the purpose of reimbursement to the City of such amount of taxes as are temporarily relieved by the action of the Board. No such lien and agreement for reimbursement shall deprive the owner of the property to whom the temporary tax exemption is granted of his or her right to freely occupy and use the property, but shall give the City, if the ownership of such property is transferred to another in any manner whatsoever, such an interest therein as will provide for the payment to the City of an amount equal to all taxes which would have been assessed and collected by the City against such property had the temporary exemption not been granted.
(b) The lien and agreement for reimbursement provided for in subsection (a) hereof shall not apply to any tax exemption granted to any blind person upon real estate used and owned as a homestead pursuant to Act 206 of the Public Acts of 1893, as amended (M.C.L.A. 211.7a).
(1979 Code Sec. 2.50.090)