Palladium-Item Argues Taxpayers Deserve Protections of SB 433

From the Richmond Palladium-Item:

...

In Indiana, a bill that got its start from locally interested parties and concerned area legislators would provide local governments a little added leeway in assuring that taxpayers don’t get stuck with those abandoned properties.

Senate Bill 433 establishes a procedure by which county executives can dispose of properties that fail to sell at tax sales, setting up a means for ownership to be transferred to an interested party able to repair and maintain them.

The measure, authored by Sen. Allen Paul with sponsorship in the House by Reps. Dick Hamm and Tom Saunders, sets out procedure for making tax sale properties available to new ownership while giving the property’s owner, or persons “with a substantial interest in the property” a chance to redeem the property in advance of sale, thus, as the bill states, “protecting interested parties from government overreach.”

The measure has been approved by the Indiana Senate and, with amendments now proposed by the Indiana House, goes back to the Senate for approval of those revisions.

We think it deserves to become law because local governments and the unwary taxpayers they represent deserve protections, notably in these difficult economic times, from being saddled with the costs of failure by others.

That means provision should be made for performance bonds commensurate with the properties value to be paid by those taking possession of the abandoned properties. It hardly benefits taxpayers to have abandoned properties pass from the hands of one party unable to pay to another scarcely able to pay.

Further, what SB 433 does not do, cannot do, is provide the kind of sustained economic boost that, more than any government fiat or threat, offers a more lasting remedy against so many properties winding up on tax sale rolls.

What it can do is give local governments some market-driven leeway to transfer ownership of those properties in a manner that holds the greatest hope for getting them back on to tax rolls while answering local housing needs.

All in all, a fitting challenge that local governments deserve the ability to more aggressively pursue.

http://www.pal-item.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2013304160005&nclick_check=1