Officials pleased with delinquent tax collection
Published 12:00 am Thursday, May 15, 2003
Nearly a month after a lawsuit was filed to collect delinquent property taxes, more than $410,000 has been collected of the more than $2.3 million owed.
"This is much more than I expected at this point," said Kevin Waldo, assistant Lawrence County prosecutor. "It's going very well. I'm extremely pleased."
The lawsuit was filed April 19 against owners of more than 1,000 parcels of property throughout Lawrence County. Waldo said the lawsuit involves property on which taxes were delinquent for three or more years.
Waldo said his office will advertise the delinquencies in the newspaper three times, with the last publication scheduled for May 30. Those who owe taxes will have until July 3 to answer the lawsuit and pay their taxes before the property is sold at a prosecutor's office sale.
Still, the law allows the property owner to pay taxes and retain his or her property even after the sale date, as long as they make that tax payment and pay all court costs associated with the delinquency before a sale confirmation entry is recorded.
"This has been a great effort on the part of the prosecutor's office, the auditor's office and the treasurer's office to conduct this sale," Waldo said. "This helps all of the county."
Waldo said those who benefit most from property taxes are the school districts, because most of the property tax monies collected go to fund schools. As a result, the schools would benefit from this sale as well.
The money collected from the delinquent tax lawsuit will go into the county's general fund. It has been more than four years since this kind of effort was made to collect delinquent taxes.