ashe

You were a ******ty city manGer if you couldn't paraphrase that for your board. If I wanted to read it, II would have done the research myself. Now, be a good beaurocrat and tell the people what it says in the end.

Shadow, the way the NC Statutes are constructed the County is first in line then the towns.

However, I no longer remember the Federal Case Law and some of this will fall under Federal forfeiture. It depends on the crimes committed on a property and the ownership.

A 10% garnishment is cost effective if the scofflaw has a real job, makes enough at the job, and above all is not self employed.

Dog, you have it right - most counties balance the cost/benefit.

Basking - it's in NCGS 105A

� 105-368. Procedure for attachment and garnishment.

(a) Subject to the provisions of G.S. 105-356 governing the priority of the lien acquired, the tax collector may attach wages and other compensation, rents, bank deposits, the proceeds of property subject to levy, or any other intangible personal property, including property held in the Escheat Fund, in the circumstances and to the extent prescribed in G.S. 105-366(b), (c), and (d).

In the case of property due the taxpayer or to become due to him within the current calendar year, the person owing the property to the taxpayer or having the property in his possession shall be liable for the taxes to the extent of the amount he owes or has in his possession. However, when wages or other compensation for personal services is attached, the garnishee shall not pay to the tax collector more than ten percent (10%) of such compensation for any one pay period.

(b) To proceed under this section, the tax collector shall serve or cause to be served upon the taxpayer and the person owing or having in his possession the wages, rents, debts or other property sought to be attached a notice as provided by this subsection. The notice may be personally served by any deputy or employee of the tax collector or by any officer having authority to serve summonses, or may be served in any manner provided in Rule 4 of the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure. The notice shall contain:

(1) The name of the taxpayer, and if known his Social Security number or federal tax identification number and his address.

(2) The amount of the taxes, penalties, interest, and costs (including the fees allowed by this section) and the year or years for which the taxes were imposed.

(3) The name of the taxing unit or units by which the taxes were levied.

(4) A brief description of the property sought to be attached.

(5) A copy of the applicable law, that is, G.S. 105-366 and 105-368. Notices concerning two or more taxpayers may be combined if they are to be served upon the same garnishee, but the taxes, penalties, interest, and costs charged against each taxpayer must be set forth separately.

(c) If the garnishee has no defense to offer or no setoff against the taxpayer, he shall within 10 days after service of the notice answer it by sending to the tax collector by registered or certified mail a statement to that effect, and if the amount demanded by the tax collector is then due to the taxpayer or subject to his demand, the garnishee shall remit it to the tax collector with his statement; but if the amount due to the taxpayer or subject to his demand is to mature in the future, the garnishee's statement shall set forth that fact, and the demand shall be paid to the tax collector upon maturity. Any payment by the garnishee under the provisions of this subsection (c) shall completely satisfy any liability therefor on his part to the taxpayer.

(d) If the garnishee has a defense or setoff against the taxpayer, he shall state it in writing under oath, and, within 10 days after service of the garnishment notice, he shall send two copies of his statement to the tax collector by registered or certified mail. If the tax collector admits the defense or setoff, he shall so advise the garnishee in writing within 10 days after receipt of the garnishee's statement, and the attachment or garnishment shall thereupon be discharged to the amount required by the defense or setoff, and any amount attached or garnished which is not affected by the defense or setoff shall be remitted to the tax collector as provided in subsection (c), above.

If the tax collector does not admit the defense or setoff, he shall set forth in writing his objections thereto and send a copy thereof to the garnishee within 10 days after receipt of the garnishee's statement, or within such further time as may be agreed on by the garnishee, and at the same time the tax collector shall file a copy of the notice of garnishment, a copy of the garnishee's statement, and a copy of the tax collector's objections thereto in the appropriate division of the General Court of Justice of the county in which the garnishee resides or does business, where the issues made shall be tried as in civil actions.

(e) If the garnishee has not responded to the notice of garnishment as required by subsections (c) and (d), above, within 15 days after service of the notice, the tax collector may file in the appropriate division of the General Court of Justice of the county in which the garnishee resides a copy of the notice of garnishment, accompanied by a written statement that the garnishee has not responded thereto and a request for judgment, and the issues shall be tried as in civil actions.

(f) The taxpayer may raise any defenses to the attachment or garnishment that he may have in the manner provided in subsection (d), above, for the garnishee.

(g) The fee for serving a notice of garnishment shall be the same as that charged in a civil action. If judgment is entered in favor of the taxing unit by default or after hearing, the garnishee shall become liable for the taxes, penalties, and interest due by the taxpayer, plus the fees and costs of the action, but payment shall not be required from amounts which are not to become due to the taxpayer until they actually come due. The garnishee may satisfy the judgment upon paying the amount thereof, and if he fails to do so, execution may issue as provided by law. From any judgment or order entered, either the taxing unit or the garnishee may appeal as provided by law. If, before or after judgment, adequate security is filed for the payment of the taxes, penalties, interest, and costs, the tax collector may release the attachment or garnishment, or execution may be stayed at the request of the tax collector pending appeal, but the final judgment shall be paid or enforced as above provided. If judgment is rendered against the taxing unit, it shall pay the fees and costs of the action. All fees collected by officers shall be disposed of in the same manner as other fees collected by such officers.

(h) Tax collectors may proceed against the wages, salary, or other compensation of officials and employees of this State and its agencies, instrumentalities, and political subdivisions in the manner provided in this section. If the taxpayer is an employee of the State, the notice of attachment shall be served upon him and upon the head or chief fiscal officer of the department, agency, instrumentality, or institution by which he is employed. If the taxpayer is an employee of a political subdivision of the State (county, municipality, etc.), the notice of attachment shall be served upon him and upon the officer charged with making up the payrolls of the political subdivision by which he is employed. All deductions from the wages or salary of a taxpayer made pursuant to this subsection (h) and remitted to the tax collector shall, pro tanto, constitute a satisfaction of the salary or wages due the taxpayer.

(i) (1) Any person who, after written demand therefor, refuses to give the tax collector or assessor a list of the names and addresses of all of his employees who may be liable for taxes, shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor.

(2) Any tax collector or assessor who receives, upon his written demand, any list of employees may not release or furnish that list or any copy thereof, or disclose any name or information thereon, to any other person, and may not use that list in any manner or for any purpose not directly related to and in furtherance of the collection and foreclosure of taxes. Any tax collector or assessor who violates or allows the violation of this subdivision (i)(2) shall be guilty of a Class 1 misdemeanor. (1939, c. 310, s. 1713; 1951, c. 1141, s. 1; 1955, cc. 1263, 1264; 1957, c. 1414, ss. 2-4; 1969, c. 305, c. 1029, s. 1; 1971, c. 806, s. 1; 1979, c. 103, ss. 3, 4; 1979, 2nd Sess., c. 1085, s. 2; 1981, c. 76, s. 1; 1987, c. 45, s. 1; 1989, c. 580, s. 2; 1993, c. 539, s. 724; 1994, Ex. Sess., c. 24, s. 14(c).)

Something I learned a few weeks ago. The county property tax lien is superior to any other liens. Even to IRS.

Most counties wait 4-10 years to start foreclosure. Its also how nice the property is and whether or not they think they will get someone to pay up.

Scott, there is a period that a property owner must be delinquent before the county can take it. they can't just take it because you missed last years bill

Easy you and I have heard the same thing. The manager is not acting alone.

I agree that Manager Yearick is definitely out to make a name for himself and an empire for himself. Word around town is that he wants Keith Little gone just like Weaver. Then he wants other department heads to roll. He has his list. Then he can appoint his and the Three Stooges' buddies to the jobs. It started in the Veterans Dept with Vaughn and will continue when he gets to Sexton in Weavers job. Then watch it continue. We have a real winner here. He will destroy our county.

I believe our town manager is out to make a name for himself and as OCM points out has not considered all costs involved. Likely this is going to backfire.

I believe by NC law all a property has to be is delinquent with reasonable expectation that the owner might attempt to avoid paying the taxes or plans to unload the property without paying. The process though can take up to 3 months. So in theory they could start the process on a property on say Jan 6th of a year if the taxes had not been paid by Jan 5th, but I don't believe that their intentions.

One thing in the article though it mentions that over a 10 year period the country recovers all but about 1% of delinquent taxes, which makes me think as OCM seems to think that this is going to cost the county more money than it is worth.

OCM, how long must taxes go unpaid before a government can foreclose on the property?

http://www.ncacc.org/Docume...r/View/970

County 5 Year Tax Collection %

Caldwell - 92.8/92.8/92.4/93.1/94.7

Ashe - 93.8/93.8/94.1/93.9/94.9

Wilkes -94.8/94.2/94.3/94.3/95.5

57, I was not disagreeing with you, just expounded on the fact you are correct. Litigation is not free, even if you have an in-house attorney.

In most cases litigation should be reserved for the anti-government, free citizen types who just refuse to pay and refuse to acknowledge the law, and in order to create a clear title on otherwise worthless property.

That's sort of conflating condemnation with foreclosure, and things may have changed but in the old days even a quit claim would not quiet title for some insurers and lenders, they wanted a local government condemnation and a clean title after the condemnation.

But here's another issue - the 90 year old lady who can not pay the taxes but will eventually die. Do you let her die and collect from the inheritors or do you badger her in her old age? It's a difficult question.

Tax bills and surveys in the Towns and near the towns are one thing. Once you edge out the boon docks it gets spotty. I know too many people in the Western part of the County that have inherited property but have never had it surveyed and don't know how much they have. In one particular case the children had all be told there was just 40 acres and they accepted that, but when finally surveyed for sale there was 63 - who paid for the other 23 acres all those years? No one and the grandfather of all of them had no reason to tell the County how much land was there.

You don't need an environmental study of most tax foreclosures, but if you foreclose, and no one buys it the governmental entity doing the foreclosing gets stuck with the maintenance of that property until it and unless it sells.

If there are any big dollars out there to be foreclosed on the odds of an potential environmental time bomb is much greater. If it's taxes highway row's that's an illusion as the properties generally have no value unless they block someone's access to the road. I pay a tax bill on a road right of way and it makes me want to set up a toll. Now what happens if I don't pay? What will the county foreclose on - the NCDOT's ROW - who will they sell it to?

It's so easy to claim "we are going to crack down on tax scofflaws" but after having watched the chasing of said for over 20 years, most of the time it was a **** boondoggle and only the attorney made any money and the unit of government got squat. The point of diminishing returns is reached very fast. Then it often becomes an ego battle between the scofflaw, and the Attorney, the Manager, or one of the Board members.

My City Attorney chased one character for 5 years, finally beating him by talking his way into the County Courthouse before hours to beat him to the Clerks. The City got all his property, we high fived ourselves, foreclosed, the whole nine yards. Guess what, two years later, he had the properties again through a relative and some of the taxes REMAINED UNPAID because the City released the liens to be rid of the rat infested property.

City, you obviously didn't catch the sarcasm dripping when I said I " liked" his comment. The man is an idiot. Lawsuits drive insurance costs up when and if they are covered; and even if they are covered it doesn't mean there is no additional cost involved. In the county's case this could mean anything from hiring additional lawyers to assist the insurance attorneys to employees being taken away from daily duties for court appearances. Anyone with common sense should not take the approach that "we don't care if you sue us because we have insurance." As I said, tend man is an idiot and should be replaced.

Chevy, you don't have insurance against intentional torts, and often the fine print in today's municipal risk is such that really stupid actions are not covered.

Basking, while many tax foreclosures are bought and perhaps most are bought up here, there are a great many in the flatlands that are not, particularly when there is no residual value after the property is cleaned up and a steady stream of costs for maintenance. You can get by with that in a rural county, but there is always legal work to be done, and I am of the opinion that so many of the underlying lines used to generate tax bills are so bad and so off kilter that a mass effort to foreclose will result in selling other people's property, creating another mess.

Joe, about 25 years I found an entire building in the middle of a city that had never been on the tax books due to an error regarding the width of two streets at the ends of the block. I only found it because I had to cover for the Downtown Redevelopment Director for a while and as I walked down one street I noticed that it didn't match the City's 1937 base map (you would have to be a map geek and a planner to even notice something like this) It was about 25 feet wide and may have been platted in the teens as an ally, but a shoe store had been there for decades. After pointing it out to the county, they were mad. A few year later I found and entire industrial addition that never made the tax books. It happens.

96% for an individual year is not bad, but not great,, however what really matters is your collection rate over 5-10 years, do you eventually get the money without having to chase it.

So the property owner has been dead for 30 years, no taxes have been paid on the property and the tax office has just figured this out. And they are worried about dss. Priceless.

You would think that a 96% collection rate was above the norm.Why did the County not know one property owner had died in 1985.?

How a tax foreclosure works is the county advertises in a local paper the sale of the property by the description. No survey is required or is done. The sale takes place on the court house steps or the normal place designated by the county. The taxes owed, interest, attorneys fees are all added together for the opening bid. The bid remains open for 10 days for any upsets in the high bidders last bid. The county then give a commissioners deed to the new owner. I have seen a county end up with some property but only once.

OldCityManager (view profile)	Posted 3:27 pm, 09/22/2015
What about the highway right of ways that the county taxes but are of no value? Only a fool attempts to foreclose on NCDOT right of way, BREMCO right of way, remnants, etc., without a redevelopment plan to take that property and attach it to another viable tract in order to have something worth selling or even taxing.

Funny you should mention that I am looking to buying a piece of property that runs to the center line of the highway. I am thinking about having it surveyed it to two pieces and not paying taxes on the part in the ROW. It is useless since it is in the road ROW and also is a ROW for another land owner as well as the utilities.

Also, I believe the buyer usually has to pay all closing costs