CLAYTON — The first step to purchase six parcels of land from Montgomery County in the amount of $15,000 under the Expedited Tax Foreclosure Program was approved by adoption of the first of two readings of an ordinance by Clayton council at its June 20 meeting.

The parcels in question have property taxes that are delinquent by at least six months or are abandoned (an unoccupied structure or vacant land), which makes them eligible for purchase by the city.

“All six that we have are vacant lots and they owe more taxes than the value of the land,” said Kevin Schweitzer, director of finance. “Most of those taxes are owed to the city for cutting grass and weeds numerous times. They are repeat offenders every year.”

Schweitzer informed council that the foreclosure program enables property owners to prevent foreclosure by paying the taxes owed, or by entering into a payment plan to eventually pay off the delinquent taxes.

“That is the ultimate goal, but if that doesn’t happen then we take possession and we will maintain the parcels,” Schweitzer said.

Some of the neighboring property owners have expressed interest in taking over maintenance of the parcels. Schweitzer said the city could consider giving or selling these parcels to neighboring property owners.

The parcels are located at 128 Talmadge Rd., 222 Obispee Ave., 7914 Melody Rd., and three residential vacant lots on Pacemont Avenue with a delinquent tax of $185,000 for all six parcels.

According to Schweitzer, the county said the cost to take possession of these properties is approximately $2,500 per lot.

“Will that price of $2,500 continue if we have other lots in the future that we need to buy?” asked Vice Mayor Tim Gorman.

“Yeah, we would come back and add those parcels and appropriate more monies for that,” Schweitzer said.

Once the city obtains the lots anyone that purchases a parcel from the city would have the delinquent taxes dropped so that the new owner would not have to pay those taxes.

“You said that most of the delinquent taxes is from mowing grass and things like that, because the $332 we charge for that times 20 doesn’t equal $15,000 by my math any way,” Gorman stated.

“The last multiple years they have not paid taxes, sometimes paid taxes, but we charge $332 each time cut and we cut those lots multiple times a season,” Schweitzer said.

He pointed out that one parcel has $50,055 in delinquent taxes owed and has not paid any taxes since 2005.

“Four of the properties have not paid taxes since 2005, one has not made payments since 2008, and one has not made payments since 2011,” noted Councilman Kenneth Henning.

“My first thought is, if we were to do an assessment on other properties around the city then at what point do we maybe say that after five years of not paying taxes we try to do this instead of waiting maybe 19 years? I would think that if I stopped paying property taxes that I would get 19 years,” Henning stated.

Schweitzer said that he has had discussions with the city’s Code Enforcement Officer Darryl Swafford about the frequent customers the city has that require mowing performed due to lack of maintenance. Schweitzer discussed the issue with the county and said the city could start more closely monitoring how much these properties are costing the city so that foreclosures could be taken sooner.

Henning asked Schweitzer if council needed to pass legislation setting a time limit of five years or if these situations could be dealt with in another manner.

Schweitzer said he could make it a policy to bring these types of properties to the attention of council before sending them to the county for the foreclosure program.

“I think if they are going to have funding for us to do this, I personally would say that five years should be the max, but that seems also high,” Henning stated.

Councilman Ryan Farmer questioned language in the ordinance regarding adjacent property owners being able to take over care of the abandoned parcels.

“Have these land owners expressed an interest in purchasing these?” Farmer asked.

Schweitzer said that the parcel on Talmadge owes $50,000 and is a small lot that once had a house on the property that burnt down. The adjacent property owner has expressed an interest on taking possession of that parcel and would maintain it. If the owner of that abandoned property pays the back taxes the city would not have to worry about buying it.

In the meantime, Schweitzer said the city should enter discussions with the neighboring property owner and see how to transfer possession of the parcel while recuperating any fees the city owes the county.

Henning made a motion to adopt the ordinance and asked that the city do an assessment of all other properties within the city to see if anyone else is behind five years or more in property taxes.

Council adopted the first of two readings of the ordinance. The second reading will take place at the July 18 meeting.

Reach Ron Nunnari at (937) 684-9124 or email [email protected].