Wednesday, August 31, 2005

80 properties returned to tax rolls in county auction

Jane Moorman News-Bulletin Staff Writer; jmoorman@news-bulletin.com

Eighty properties were returned to the tax roll Wednesday, Aug. 24, when they were sold in a property tax foreclosure sale on the courthouse steps.

The 80 properties were left from the original 193 parcels with delinquent 2001 taxes that were listed for the sale.

"Taxes on the other 113 parcels were cleared by the landowners before the sale," said Max Quintana, senior title examiner for the state Taxation and Revenue Department, which is in charge of collecting back taxes for the county.

"Most of the property sold was from the Rio del Oro area just north of Rio Communities," he said. "We were able to sell all of the parcels, collecting about $100,000."

Because of the success of the sale, Quintana plans to place additional Rio del Oro parcels in the next auction. But, first, he must begin the process of collecting the delinquent taxes on another set of properties.

"We'll take another batch of properties and begin tracking down the owners to collect the taxes. If we cannot collect, we will place the property in another auction," he said.

In 2004, the state's delinquent property tax bureau declared Valencia County as having the worst delinquent tax problem in the state.

"We have more than 40,000 properties on our delinquent tax list," said County Treasurer Diane Martinez-Coplin. "The state has been working with us to recover those taxes."

Since that time, Quintana has been working in the county to collect back taxes. After 13 months, he says he has collected on 2,400 properties that had delinquent 2000 and 2001 taxes.

"We actually can collect the taxes for the past 10 years when we finally get the person to come in," he said. "We collected $1.2 million of the delinquent 2000 taxes and, as of this week, we have collected $1.5 million of the owed 2001 taxes."

After the state receives the penalty and interest, the remainder is distributed to the governmental entities that have assessed taxes on the property. Some will go to the county, municipalities and the school district in which the property is located.

Representatives of the entities have noticed the increase in their property tax revenues.

"We budget according to what we have received in the past. In June of 2004 and 2005, we received more than we had budgeted for. Apparently, the county's efforts has worked," said Mildred Garley, City of Belen financial director.

County Manager Mike Trujillo said during the county commission's budget planning time that the county has received approximately $870,000 from the delinquent taxes.

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