From the Richmond Palladium-Item:
The tax sale represents the first important step in this process. It may be that in looking at some of the subsequent steps, Wayne and area county officials need to enlist the help of their statewide association in pursuing legislation that safeguards the best interests of taxpayers in all of this.
For example, the more than $135,000 in delinquent property taxes collected this week when 73 delinguent properties sold in the annual sale at the Wayne County Administration Building seems at first glance like something to cheer about. Another 130 properties saw delinquent taxes paid in advance of the sale, netting the county $341,379.
But what happens to those properties going forward will depend in large part on a general economic recovery and some targeted protections coming out of the Indiana General Assembly.
...
This is where taxpayers need some added targeted protection. This is where legislation may be needed that requires some kind of performance or surety bond from buyers to guarantee they will improve the property, or at least not cause or permit it to deteriorate further and forfeit it again to taxpayers.
The cost for government, that is the cost for taxpayers, to maintain or even raze a vacated property is steep, and taxpayers should be spared the cost of another’s delinquency.
With economic recovery, this problem probably gets resolved by the free market without the demand for a heightened government role. But, then, with recovery, the number of properties deemed tax delinquent probably drops to a fraction of the hundreds now on the county’s rolls.
http://www.pal-item.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012310100005
