Hi , I am relatively inexperienced with tax liens and have a situation for which I don’t know the answer. I have a property for which i paid the 2007 and 2008 taxes but not the 2009 taxes which remained available as a CP purhase. I really was just hoping to redeem on the lien and not foreclose so have been just kind of waiting on this one. I checked the status of these taxes recently and noticed that the owner has paid the 2010 taxes - but not the 2009 taxes. Nor the ones for which I have the lien.
This is something that I had never thought of but is this a way for the owner to keep ownership of the property with someone paying some of the old taxes for them - and making it unfeasible for the lien holder to foreclose? Do they not have to pay up all taxes owing at some point?
Yep, its true. I never went ahead with obtaining the 2009 taxes - either due to lack of funds or lack of interest in the property at the time. I did go back to see as nothing was happening (ie. being redeemed), so I checked with the county and apparently they can do this. Below is the response I got:
"It will be up to the owner. No it is not required to make payments on the oldest years first. In this case because the 2010 was not sub taxed when payment was made, they were able to pay 2010 by itself. "
I would have thought that common sense would dictate that the amount they paid would be applied to the oldest taxes, therefore I would be simply be reimbursed for all or portion of the 2007 taxes…
Strange indeed. Seems kind of like this county makes it difficult for the lien holder, yet they are ultimately benefiting from the income.