Garry Millius and Amanda Posto hope to own the vacant lot behind their house in Stinesville in one year.
They and about 50 other people attended the Monroe County Tax Sale Wednesday morning in the not-officially-opened county courthouse. The couple stayed only long enough to bid on the property that abuts their back door, the result of a poorly subdivided lot, they said. They offered to buy the vacant lot previously, they said, but couldn’t negotiate a deal even though the owner was delinquent on the property taxes.
Turning that vacant lot into their backyard “will make our dog really happy,” Posto said.
That lot was among the first of 66 properties to be auctioned during the sale.
That figure is down from 369 tax-delinquent properties on July 1, the date the tax sale list was certified, said Therese Chambers, chief deputy auditor. She said 303 owners paid off their tax debts since then, including 19 for whom the treasurer and auditor arranged payment plans.
Between Sept. 25 and Oct. 3, about 114 property owners in arrears on their taxes paid off their debt, Chambers said.
“Lots of people wait until the last minute,” said Hans Huffman, chief deputy treasurer.
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The minimum bid on properties auctioned at the tax sale includes property taxes unpaid for the past two years, plus a $150 fee for a title search, a $25 state-mandated fee, any additional liens against the property, and fees accumulated from previous tax sales in which the property went unsold.
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By the end of the sale, in which Smith served as auctioneer, 45 properties had sold, including several that went at the minimum bid. Twenty one had no bidders, and will be in next year’s tax sale, unless their owners pay up before then.
By 4 p.m. Wednesday, county coffers grew by $1,750,577.17 as a result of the sale, Huffman said. Of that roughly $302,000 represents taxes in arrears, and that money will be distributed among the county’s taxing units. The other $1.45 million represents the sum of overbids, the difference between each winning and minimum bid, which is given to the original property owners.
