County treasurer Donna Lawson and her staff will hold the annual county tax sale Monday, June 18, at 9 am in the board room at the courthouse.
This year’s tax sale will take place without the worry of the 2017 sale. As of late Tuesday, there were 114 parcels listed on the sale with a total of just more than $54,400 in unpaid taxes. Taxes on 30 parcels have been paid since the legal notice of the sale was published a week ago.
Two weeks before the 2017 sale there were more than 300 parcels listed, with more than half of them owned by Hunter Farms and Hunter of Iowa. The Hunter taxes, totaling nearly $100,000, were paid in the week just prior to the sale. The morning of the sale there were 124 parcels and a total of $59,250 in delinquent taxes.
The annual tax sale is a way to minimize the impact of unpaid taxes on the county. Bidders pay the unpaid taxes and most often get their money back, plus 2 percent per month, when the property owners “redeem” their property by paying the back taxes, interest and penalties. The process by which a bidder would become owner of the property takes nearly three years and is only occasionally completed without the property owner redeeming the property.
Click here for the legal notice of the delinquent tax sale.
