Paying property taxes on behalf of an absentee neighbour

[PG]

Facts:
I live in a semi-detached toronto house, where the connecting semi detached house has been abandoned. Given the state of disrepair and overgrown hedges, it seems that it will only be a matter of time until this property becomes a tax sale. My fear however, and judging from Toronto's last tax sale last summer is that this property will go for an astronomical amount of money.

Questions I have:
If after doing proper due diligence and failing to track down the last person on title, if the city permits, can I start paying the property taxes and then register a charge against the house for the amount of taxes paid?

I realize that if an heir of the person on title came to claim the property, the home would rightfully be theirs, but it would be subject to my charge placed on title.

I realize that there is certainly a substantial risk in doing this, however, if after 15 years of paying taxes, renovating the home and occupying it, any claim brought against me for tresspass could be countered with a claim of adverse possession as a defence.

I know that I may be grasping at straws and may only be setting myself up for a lengthy and costly litigation, but I welcome any of your thoughts.

[link]

You can certainly pay taxes on any property you like however without any sort of agreement or judgement in place you can not place a charge against the property .You certainly could not occupy the property without trespassing and would face even more criminal charges if you renovated or altered it in any way and in Ontario under land titles unlike the old paper registry there is no longer adverse possession unless you could prove you had adverse possession prior to conversion from the book ,if you want the property start saving up some cash so when it does come up for sale you are ready

[Pfm1011]

You would have no claim, but the family would thank you for the free renovation job on the house,  

And why would you want to stop a taxsale of a piece of crap house thats destroying your land value??

In fact I would be screaming at the city to maintain the property and look for anything unsafe that would force repairs,