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October 11, 2008

Essex County will sell tax properties before sale

By LOHR McKINSTRY

ELIZABETHTOWN -- Essex County says it's OK to sell tax-seized properties to previous owners' relatives -- but not to neighbors -- before a Nov. 13 auction.

The County Board of Supervisors has approved several sales to relatives of property owners whose land was taken for back taxes.

But the sales are contingent upon the original owner not coming in to reclaim the property by Oct. 30, the two-week deadline before the sale.

WHO CAN BUY

County Attorney Daniel Manning III said the county's policy allows only the owner to reclaim a property by paying the back taxes, fees and other charges.

"These (sale) requests are coming in not from owners but from relatives. I can see how you're going to have problems if you do this before the 14-day period before the sale. You need to wait until the 14-day period."

He said the relatives should be treated the same as the owners and pay the same fees and charges if they buy a property.

"If you're going to resell it to other people, relatives or anybody, they're going to have to wait. You could have problems."

Supervisor Thomas Scozzafava (R-Moriah) said that in the case of one sale to a relative already OK'd, the owner had died.

Manning said there could be problems with that type of sale, as well. He cited a case where a property was willed to one brother and another brother approached a county to buy the property.

"There are family issues out there," Supervisor Randy Douglas (D-Jay) said. "I'd caution the board to be careful. I agree we should do anything we can do to keep a property in family hands if it's been there for generations."

County Treasurer Michael Diskin said they can add a clause that a sale is contingent on no one else claiming the property before the deadline.

"We could put the monies in trust and not do anything with them before that date."

The county has approved sales to relatives of property owners in Moriah, Crown Point and Keene, with the 14-day condition.

ADJACENT OWNER

But supervisors balked at selling to an adjacent property owner in Moriah's Witherbee hamlet.

Scozzafava said the property at 31 Wasson St., Witherbee contains a duplex dwelling, and the owner on the other side offered the county a $2,000 bid for it.

Back taxes are $13,800, and the owner won't answer subpoenas, Scozzafava said.

"The place is an absolute mess. We've had zero cooperation from either the landlord or the tenant."

Police have been called to the house as recently as Oct. 3, he said, because of conditions there.

"We're going to get it cleaned up one way or another."

County Manager Daniel Palmer said the best way to handle that one might be that if it doesn't sell at auction, the county could then sell it to the adjacent resident.

"To treat someone else differently is going to cause all kinds of problems," Manning said, because others would want the same deal.

In the last tax sale, the county did sell properties in Jay and Minerva to adjoining residents.

Auctioneer Edward Haroff will be placing signs at the tax-sale parcels this week, with the brochure out Friday or Saturday, Diskin said.

He said that if a property is sold before the tax sale, "it will stay in the brochure, and they'll cross it out with an X."

The sale starts at 10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 13, at the Ticonderoga Best Western.

lmckinstry@pressrepublican.com

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