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Tax lien auction 100 percent successful

One of the ways county government is funded is through property taxes. Property taxes are attached to personal property (for businesses only – not for residential personal property), mobile homes and real estate properties. This “attachment” is legally known as a “lien,” a property tax lien. Once you pay your property taxes, the lien goes away until next year.

Sometimes people do not pay their property taxes on time, thus the taxes become “delinquent.” If the delinquency persists until November of the year, then these tax liens are offered up for sale at an annual auction.

The last two years this auction has been held online, with very good results. An online auction reduces the cost of the auction to the county. The tax lien investors, the ones who buy the tax liens, pay for most of the costs, such as the cost of the advertising insert you see in the Herald every October, the cost of the website and auctioneer, and the cost of any certificates issued. An online auction also reduces the time involved in setting up the auction, processing the auction results, and processing paper checks to and from the investors. (There are no more paper checks involved!)

Investors appreciate this, as well as county employees – who can spend their time doing other things. This year’s tax lien sale had some surprising results.

All tax liens were sold to investors. This is the first time in the history of the county that all, 100 percent, real estate and mobile home taxes have been collected! What is even better news, is that there were fewer tax liens that went to sale this year, 14 percent fewer than in 2014, and 5 percent fewer than in 2015. This means more property owners paid their taxes earlier and taxing authorities received their money earlier. Taxing authorities are entities such as the school districts, fire districts and business improvement districts – organizations that do good things for our community. This is how your local taxes continue to make La Plata County a great place to live.

Allison Aichele

Durango



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