Brief by Central Staff
Local Government – December 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine
We know from experience that small-town newspaper publishers encourage civic virtue, except perhaps in one regard — paying your property taxes on time.
If the property taxes aren’t paid by the deadline, the county applies a lien against the property. The liens are then advertised (thus providing some income for the local newspaper) for three weeks in the fall. People can bid on the liens at a public sale conducted by the county treasurer. The money from the winning bidder pays the taxes.
The property owner can pay off the successful bidder, who collects some interest in the process. If the owner doesn’t pay the lien, then over time the lien-holder can acquire title to the property. In days of yore, it was often a way to get rural property on the cheap. Now the tax liens usually serve as an investment for the bidder.
That’s the process. Now, how prompt are Central Coloradans at paying their property taxes?
In three of our counties, the “Delinquent Tax List” required a separate section of the newspaper.
Park County had the most delinquents. The Park County Republican & Fairplay Flume ran a 20-page section for the Oct. 28 tax-lien sale. We didn’t count the individual notices, but there were 16½ pages that listed land parcels, their owners, and taxes due. Each page averaged about 90 individual notices, so that works out to about 1485 delinquent properties.
The Saguache Crescent carried about 10½ pages of delinquent tax notices, with about 70 notices per page, which works out to approximately 735 delinquent properties.
In Custer County, the listings were numbered in the special section of the Wet Mountain Tribune, so we have an exact count there — 176 delinquent parcels.
If any readers have actually acquired property for back taxes in recent years, we’d be interested in hearing from you — it could make an interesting story.
