From the Bloomington Herald-Times:
The Monroe County Legal Department performed title searches on 333 properties on the county’s certified tax sale list, and has billed the county a total of $49,950 for the work.
On July 1, there were 375 properties on the certified list, but since then, 42 owners have paid the full amount owed to be removed from the list, as permitted by state law. Among the remaining 333 were 117 properties whose owners thought they could avoid being on the tax sale list and paying the title search fee by paying a lower “pre-certification” amount by July 13.
They had good reason to think that: All 375 tax-delinquent property owners received a letter that county Treasurer Cathy Smith mailed on June 27, warning them that their properties were headed for a tax sale. The form letter states: “Once your property has been certified for tax sale, to prevent your property from being sold in the tax sale, you must pay all delinquent taxes, special assessments, penalties and any other costs that have accrued.”
But the form letter does not state that the certification date, by state law, is July 1.
Smith blames the software she uses to keep track of property tax payments for the mistaken July 13 deadline. That date comes from a schedule of tax sale procedures planned by the county legal department. The letters Smith sent were computer generated, but on each one was a hand-written note Smith added, pointing to a pre-certification amount with the words “Before July 13,” and adding “After:” and a higher, post-certification amount.
Monroe County commissioners President Mark Stoops has said he thinks the 117 property owners who were misled into paying the pre-certification amount too late should be removed from the tax sale list, but that decision is up to Monroe County Auditor Amy Gerstman. Gerstman did not return a call Thursday asking for comments....
Tax-delinquent property owners who pay the post-certification amount before the tax sale can avoid the sale. Schilling said the legal department will “keep up with law as we go along. ...
We’re going to keep the county in a position to sell the properties. That’s what the law requires.” Stoops said Thursday that the topic of the payments was not on the agenda for today’s county commissioners meeting.
“Right now, it’s in the auditor’s hands. I think we could address it and talk about it, but there’s not much we could do,” he said.
http://www.heraldtimesonline.com/stories/2012/08/24/news.action-proceeding-against-properties-on-tax-sale-list.sto
Yesterday's blog entry on this matter can be found here:
http://indianapropertytaxreporter.blogspot.com/2012/08/treasurer-offers-payment-plan-to.html
