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Delinquent Property Taxes

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County making 

strides regarding 

delinquent property taxes

By Ted Pennekamp

 

Crawford County continues to make strides in catching up with resolving its delinquent property tax concerns and attempting to collect those taxes.

In fact, there are several properties listed under public notices in this issue of The Courier Press that are in the foreclosure process. Such properties will also be listed in the April 11 and April 18 editions.

The county would rather not foreclose, and would rather have the owners get caught up by paying their property taxes. Otherwise, however, the county can foreclose on any property that has three or more years worth of delinquent taxes, except properties in bankruptcy, said Crawford County Treasurer Deanne Lutz.

“We have two separate lists going right now. The first list is the 2013 tax year and prior,” said Lutz, who noted that the county is trying to catch up on three years worth of back taxes which are the 2011, 2012, and 2013 tax years. Those files have been filed with the court.  

Lutz said there are still months left of work on these properties before the county will own them, probably towards the end of summer. 

“If at any time the current owner brings the taxes and additional fees completely up to date before the final court date, they will come off the list,” said Lutz.

Lutz also explained that there is a second list, which is the one in February that went to the full county board and also was listed in The Courier Press. These properties have the tax year 2014 delinquent. Most of these properties have other years such as 2015, 2016 and 2017 delinquent as well, said Lutz.

The next step for this list is to have title work done. “At that time, we find out if there are any liens or mortgages against the property,” said Lutz. “We send out certified notices based on the findings. For properties that have mortgages on them, we notify the lenders. The banks at that time can either refinance the property with the current owner to bring the taxes up to date, they can start foreclosure action themselves, or they can just let the property go and we will keep pursuing our foreclosure process.”

These steps have already been done with the properties on the first list, those properties with 2013 and prior years of delinquent taxes. At this point, the property owner can pay the 2014 taxes, additional fees and title work and they will come off the list, said Lutz. Once the county gets further along in the process, however, all of the delinquent tax years plus additional fees are required to be paid to be removed from the list, she said.

Any property the county forecloses on due to delinquent taxes goes to the county. It doesn’t matter if the county owned that property at one point or not. The county has a right to do whatever they want with the property after that. Most of the time, the properties are sold at an auction, said Lutz. If the properties are purchased at auction, the new owners would not be responsible for any back taxes, interest or penalties.

“The foreclosure process can take a year or longer, so we could have multiple foreclosures on different tax years going at the same time in different stages,” said Lutz. “Moving forward, we will start action every year at the full county board in February on the latest tax year out there.”

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