Many residents of Luzerne County have been spending a good deal of time in the county courthouse recently. Like buyer Antonio Mannino, they are on the hunt for properties at bargain prices. There are to be approximately eight hundred fifty properties auctioned as a result of homeowners failing to pay their property taxes.
Mannino has been in the business of buying at tax sales for many years. Over the two decades, he has learned many things. One of the most important is that one must do his homework before attending an auction. The reason for this is that these properties often come with several liens attached to them. A person cannot enter such a transaction without being fully aware of the outstanding debt against the property. It could negate any potential gains on the investment. It is only a high risk game for those not willing to put in the man hours to research the available properties for sale. Mannino says that he did find that some of the properties carried high mortgage and credit card debt. Those would be the ones to avoid.
The county Tax Claim Office has been very busy in recent days as steady streams of people either interested in purchasing one of the properties or intent on saving theirs from being in the sale. There were originally more than fifty-five hundred properties that were going to be featured in the auction, but homeowners are slowly saving theirs from the chopping block. All five thousand plus properties were affiliated with back taxes dating back to 2008 or before.
There are just three ways that a homeowner can save his or her property from such a sale once the back taxes reach that point. The first is to pay the taxes in full. The second is to stick to an arranged payment plan without missing payments. These payment plans are determined by state law to involve twenty-five percent being put down up front. The remainder must be paid within one year. Finally, the person can file for bankruptcy. Once in the process of filing, the house will be spared.
Some property owners, however, have been attempting to obtain court orders to save their properties, or, in the case of the city of Wilke-Barre, the lack of property. Apparently one of the properties to be sold was the Old River Road Bakery, which was said to be owned by the city. Problem was that the parcel descriptions were misidentified and the property wasn’t as described. The actual property could still go to auction, but not until a later date, when all errors have been corrected. That will only be the case if back taxes, which currently amount to more than half a million dollars, are left unpaid. Similarly, another property owner was able to secure more time to sell properties already listed with a realtor. Others were removed by court order because they were in condemnation processes. Another was considered tax-exempt and was mistakenly listed.
Despite all that have been taken out of the running, there are still many properties available and buyers are ready. More than fifty bidders are registered and will participate in the auction. Those that don’t sell can be re-listed in later sales, and homeowners will be allotted the time in between to continue paying toward their owed debt. Finally, there is the option to sell in a judicial sale, whereby all debt attached to the property will be waived.
