Riley County’s 2019 delinquent tax foreclosure case and auction wrapped up last week after auctioning off seven properties.
During Monday’s Riley County commission meeting, Deputy County Counselor Craig Cox presented all the final figures to the foreclosure case. The case began in October 2018 with 84 properties. Cox’s office sent out letters in October notifying residents their properties qualified for the tax sale. The county was able to collect $197,176 based on the demand letter sent in October and another $63,183 after filing the case in January.
During the auction held on June 28, they were able to collect $6,681 of the remaining taxes owed of $6,693. There were 17 registered bidders before the auction, but only 11 showed up. Four of the bidders walked away with seven of the properties. This totaled to $267,041 of delinquent tax revenue collected. Cox says his office was only $12 away from collecting all owed taxes. Last year the county was only around $1.50 off.
Commission Chairman Ron Wells was pleased with the auction saying it has been a very effective tool of paying off owed taxes.
“Many years ago people believed it would take 10 years to sell their house. Now, this shows we are in earnest and we’re gonna stay current,” says Wells, “This has prompted a lot of people coming in to take care of business right up to the day of the sale.”
Another helpful tool used to collect all delinquent taxes is a payment plan. Cox says they had eight taxpayers on payment plans that were able to payoff the delinquent taxes before the auction. He encouraged everyone to pay all there taxes so they won’t have to worry about this next year when they collect 2015’s taxes.
