The county will be seeking sealed bids from the public for the sale of tax delinquent properties not sold through previous tax sales.
During Monday night’s monthly meeting, the county commission voted to surplus those parcels and publish an advertisement seeking sealed bids to sell them. The county plans to award bids to the highest bidders without collecting from the buyers back taxes owed on those properties.
County Mayor Tim Stribling said there may be as many as 100 parcels available for sale.
“Through the years when people don’t pay their taxes, the Clerk and Master has a delinquent tax sale and what property is not purchased goes back to the county. The last delinquent tax sale the Clerk and Master had was November 4, 2016. The county has to wait a year before we can sell this property. That will be November 4, 2017. There is also property on the books from 2009, 2012, and 2014. There is probably about 75 to 100 parcels of property that the county has received through the delinquent tax sales. We need to surplus this property to be able to sell it. I think the best thing to do is advertise the sale with a description of the property and include that the parcels are on the Tennessee property data website. We can include the property address, control map, group, parcel, and lot number, and let people submit sealed bids. We can then have the purchasing committee open bids at a certain date. This would give people a better opportunity to bid rather than a LIVE auction. Everybody might not be able to make it to a LIVE auction but this way people could mail in their bids or bring them into the office. Once the parcels are sold then the county will be able to collect property taxes on them again,” said County Mayor Stribling.
He said most of the properties are in the Lakeview Mountain Estates, Holiday Haven, Four Star Point areas.
In other business, the commission voted to enter into a Revenue Enhancement Consulting Agreement with the Barrett Group of Murfreesboro.
During a workshop last Thursday, Donna Barrett of the Barrett Group addressed the county commission to explain the proposal.
Under the agreement, the Barrett Group will conduct a review to make sure the county is getting all the revenues it is due from various state taxes that local businesses pay including sales tax, Hall income tax, beer and liquor tax, excise tax, etc.
For example, if a municipality within the county is found from this review to be erroneously receiving any tax revenues from businesses outside of the municipality, then the mistake will be corrected and the tax money will be re-directed to the county.
“If another municipality is receiving those funds and should be going to the county, then that’s where it would be corrected. There would be no loss to the business owner but if a mistake is found then they (business owner) would be sent a report stating where they should properly send that tax,”said County Mayor Stribling.
The Barrett Group is to receive 50% of any extra revenues generated to the county from this review only for the first year. After the first year, no further fees would be paid to Barrett. If the review turns up no mistakes, the county would not owe Barrett anything.
The vote to approve the agreement was 12-1-1. Commissioner Bradley Hendrix voted against it. Commissioner Julie Young “passed”.
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