A three-month effort to collect delinquent property taxes has netted nearly $700,000 for local taxing units.
“We had 178 parcels with delinquent property taxes when we started the process on June 29,” county Treasurer Kathy Hohenstreiter said.
She said since the beginning the certification process to prepare for Thursday’s tax sale, many people with delinquent property taxes paid those bills.
Those who didn’t likely saw their property sold during the tax sale in the lobby of the courthouse in Brownstown.
The proceeds of that sale as well as back property taxes collected before the sale brought in $692,299, and the total could have been closer to $1 million except for one thing, Hohenstreiter said.
“We had one property owner, Gill Enterprises, file Chapter 11 bankruptcy,” she said.
That Seymour company had 21 properties that had been slated to be sold during the tax sale but had to be removed from the list of properties to be sold because of bankruptcy proceedings, Hohenstreiter said. The company also acquired four parcels with delinquent property taxes owned by a family member before filing bankruptcy, she said.
By the time of sale there were just 35 parcels with unpaid property taxes, and 28 were purchased by some of the 30 bidders on hand for the sale, Hohenstreiter said. Those properties brought in $188,001.66 in delinquent taxes and penalties.
