In a growing trend, another town considers tax title auction OPTION
Eryn Dion
News Staff Writer
Following
a more recent statewide trend, Hubbardston may soon look to offload
delinquent tax titles to a collection agency in a public auction.
Selectman
Raeanne Siegal raised the subject with Town Administrator Anita
Scheipers, who took it to the board Monday night for their opinion,
which was positive, with the board being receptive to the idea of
pursuing a tax title auction.
According to Ms. Scheipers, other
communities have effectively sold their liens through this process,
which guarantees that the town is paid the full amount owed and passes
the collection responsibility onto the purchasing entity.
“It has
been a very effective way for towns to get revenue that’s owed to them
and we need to do our due diligence,” Ms. Scheipers stated.
Although
there has been some recent backlash against the practice, with towns
selling off liens of relatively little value and leaving residents
paying high interest back on a debt as little as $1,000, Ms. Scheipers
said Hubbardston ultimately decides which liens go to the auction block
and can put a threshold in place — guaranteeing that only titles of
substantial value are sold.
Those details, the administrator said, can be worked out once she and the town’s treasurer meet with an agency.
“If
it looks like it’s an appropriate thing for Hubbardston to go ahead and
do, I think that we can put together some criteria as to which
properties we would be willing to sell off to a collection agency,” she
said.
When asked, Ms. Scheipers stated that she was reluctant to
give a definitive amount the town is owed in back taxes or how many
properties have liens against them because she is currently working with
the newly hired tax collector to determine which properties are
actually behind on their payments.
“There’s some properties that
we feel very comfortable to say that they are indeed in tax title, but
that is a very small list,” Ms. Scheipers commented. “We are not at the
point where the new tax collector would be willing to say ‘yes,’ this is
the totally accurate list.”
Once used more by larger cities such
as Worcester that annually sell their liens at auction, smaller towns
have increasingly turned to the practice to ease the burden placed on
the treasurer and tax collector’s offices while generating revenue at a
time when most municipalities are strapped for cash.
Early last
month, Templeton sold its liens to the Bostonbased Tallage LLC for
$304,890. Town officials in Winchendon have stated that they will likely
pursue a sale of their delinquent titles to help bridge their $3.4
million budget deficit.
In Hubbardston, Ms. Scheipers said she
would meet with a representative from an agency and report back to the
selectmen with more details about the idea.
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