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Show May Sale 90 could offer deals By SCOTT SUMMERILL FARMINGTON - Davis County will be auctioning off 37 properties for delinquent taxes in the foyer of the Farmington Courthouse during the 1990 May Sale. Bidding is open to anyone interested, inter-ested, and minimum bids for each property are set by one of two criteria, according to Tax Techru- cian Fawn Jensen. The first method, and the most common, is to add the total amount of taxes due on the property, the penalties and fines and advertising costs. The sum is the lowest acceptable accep-table bid. Under certain conditions, when the property is deemed by the County Coun-ty Commission to be of too high a value to be sold for taxes, the commission com-mission can set a price above the cost-to-county amount This situation situa-tion helps protect the property owners form taking too great a loss. "There are probably several properties we will do this with this year," said Jensen. Properties do not go up for auction auc-tion unless the taxes have been delinquent for at least five years without acceptable response or repayment agreement from the owner. Penalties on properties for auction auc-tion are set at 2 percent of the amount of taxes due, but not less than $10. Advertising fees include having all properties listed in the two newspapers serving Davis County, the Davis County Clipper and the Standard Examiner, at least four times in as many weeks prior to the sale, cost of sending notice of impending sale by certified mail to all owners and lien holders of property prop-erty to be auctioned and the cost of conducting a title search when it is necessary. The total amount of taxes due includes any interest incurred. in-curred. Jensen said once on the bidding block, all property will go to the highest bidder, and any money in excess of the cost-to-county amount is forwarded to the State Tax Commission, Com-mission, who then returns it to the previous land owner. All property not sold at the auction auc-tion is picked up by the county and all taxes are abated. The county property manager, Ralph Wilcox, then tries to sell off the land to neighboring property owners. "It doesn't do us any good to have it under our control," said Jensen. "When it's retained by the county, all the entities that should be getting a cut of the property taxes take a loss." At this point, the total amount of taxes due on all the properties is more than $110,000, and amounts due on individual lots range from a high of $24,280.87 to a low of $82.74. Jensen said property owners will have until the auction opens at 10:00 a.m.. May 24, to pay their delinquent taxes and redeem their property. After that, the property will either be sold or retained by the county. There are maps of each piece of property up for auction in the county coun-ty auditor's office for prospective bidders to examine. Bidders are also warned to bring cashier checks, certified checks or cash if they plan to buy property. "We won't take any personal check," said Jensen, "and we have to have payment within one hour after the close of the sale. ' Jensen also said the May Sale doesn't last long. |