However, since the News-Sun’s analysis began this month, the more than $264,000 owed by GS Holdings Brookside LTD — the former owner of Brookside Mobile Home Park — was paid in full when a new owner closed on the property.
It was then the second-highest delinquency of all open cases in the county, according to the treasurer’s office.
The Twin Creeks subdivision in New Carlisle currently owes the most of any delinquent property at $800,000. However, within the next several weeks, 31 parcels there will drop off the list when the city of New Carlisle officially takes over the deeds through the county’s Land Reutilization Program.
Those two cases combined, once settled, will reduce the amount owed among active cases by more than $1 million.
Generally speaking, Clark County taxpayers want to pay and do, Treasurer Stephen Metzger said.
From 1990 through 2012, the treasurer’s office billed for $ 1.862 billion in real estate taxes and assessments and collected $1.847 billion.
“I think we have good taxpayers in Clark County,” Metzger said. “It’s just that I think they got caught in situations where (they) were working six years ago … and all at once (they) lose a job or they lose overtime.”
Twin Creeks subdivision
The city of New Carlisle has had the Twin Creeks deeds in hand for several months, and city council unanimously approved a resolution with the county to proceed with the deed transfer through the reutilization program Monday night, according to City Manager Kim Jones.
The parcels were purchased in 2004 by Michigan investor Dan Craite, who died in 2007. Craite planned to construct a 700-unit housing development over 15 years, with housing costs between $150,000 to $250,000.
New Carlisle was forced to pay about $80,000 per year to cover treasury notes issued in 2004 to pay for improvements. The notes were to be paid by the now-defunct Twin Creeks Subdivision company, which stopped paying on the notes and taxes in 2006, Jones has said.
The Twin Creeks reutilization deal will now go to the Clark County commissioners for a vote.
“The land reutalization program is designed to eliminate the taxes and assessments and get the properties back out there on the market, becoming productive properties into the future,” Assistant County Prosecutor Bill Hoffman explained, who handles real estate tax foreclosures through the prosecutor’s office civil division.
Once the deeds are officially transferred, the parcels will be appraised and go for sale through a realtor with which the city has contracted, Jones said.
Most of those parcels are in the first phase of the subdivision, according to Hoffman. Twin Creeks Phase II parcel delinquencies are mostly still in litigation.
“One of the problems with that property was the large assessment placed on all the lots. It hurt the marketability,” he added.
Champions Center
Number four on the list is the non-profit Ohio Equine Agricultural Association Inc., which still owes more than $150,000 in real estate taxes on the Champions Center at the Clark County Fairgrounds.
The association — as well as 130 other delinquent taxpayers with active cases — is paying off the taxes through delinquent contract payment plans, meaning it will move down and off the list as they settle up with the county.
“When it was originally applied for, supposedly there was a notice sent back to us that it had been disapproved, and it had either got lost or didn’t get put where it needed to,” Association President Fred Maine said. “The real reason that we had to pay it was that this paperwork got misplaced, and it didn’t get taken care of when it should have. And, at that point, it’s just one of those deals.”
He said the $39,000 bill twice a year has put a lot of pressure on the budget. It’s not required to pay real estate taxes now that it’s been granted its tax-exempt status.
“It’s been tough, and once that’s paid off, things will be a whole bunch better for us,” Maine said.
The county, which is also named on the Champions Center delinquency, could be on the hook for any remaining balances should the association stop paying its back taxes, Clark County Administrator Nathan Kennedy said.
But Maine said the association has been and continues to pay about $39,000 twice a year, and it expects it will be able to write the delinquency off the books soon.
Hollenbeck Bayley Center
Number six on the list is the Clark State Community College tax district, which owes nearly $111,500 in back taxes, penalties and interest for 2012 on what should have been the tax-exempt Hollenbeck Bayley Creative Arts and Conference Center.
It’s not yet clear why the Ohio Department of Taxation in July ruled in the college’s favor for tax exemption in 2013 and in the future but said the college owed taxes for 2012 — despite it being built on tax-exempt land by a tax-exempt agency.
“Basically, what (the Ohio Department of Taxation is) saying is, we’ve got a tax exemption, it’s in place beginning January of ‘13,” said Joe Jackson, vice president of the college’s Business Affairs office.
College officials have been working to figure what happened with tax year 2012 since last fall, Jackson said.
Clark State is a political subdivision of the state, Jackson said, and applied as it’s required to do for a building permit in 2011.
What’s not known is, for example, if the state building permit agency was supposed to contact the county to put the building on the county’s tax rolls, or if the college was supposed to do that, he said.
“We’ve not been able to find any clear-cut answers to who should have done what and when and why to have alleviated the situation that we find ourselves in.” Jackson said.
Not only does it owe the more than $96,000 in back taxes, but costs were compounded by nearly $15,000 in penalties and interest that accrued while the college waited about a half a year for the state’s decision.
It applied for tax-exempt status on the building in January and received the ruling in early July.
The college could have appealed the ruling, but since the state ruled favorably for the building’s tax-exempt status going forward, it decided not to, Jackson said.
“Now we’ve got this issue to work through on this 2012 year,” he said.
“The Clark State board feels strongly that by being a tax-exempt organization that is funded by state taxpayers, students, generous donors and grantors, the college should in no instance be paying real estate tax,” Jim Doyle, chair of the Clark State Board of Trustees, told the Springfield News-Sun in a statement.
“Clark State takes its role as a state community college very seriously, and we make every decision with the knowledge that we are good stewards of taxpayer dollars. We are currently working to resolve this issue, as this property is tax exempt,” Clark State President Jo Alice Blondin said.
Preferably, Jackson said, the money the state tax department says is owed would be put to better use to directly impact instruction and students.
Brookside Mobile Home Park
GS Holdings Brookside LTD, which did business as Brookside Mobile Home Park, owed more than $264,000, but that single parcel went into receivership several years ago and found its way off the list and out of delinquency just this month.
Buyer South Vienna Mobile Home Park LLC closed on the property, and taxes were recovered through the sale.
It was ordered into receivership by courts, and April Rose, a resident there, who managed the property until which time the buyer was located.
Molly Thatcher, a title agent, told the News-Sun that Rose had nothing to work with when she began researching how to keep the park from being sold through a sheriff’s sale.
Officials from the investment company that opened South Vienna Mobile Home Park LLC, based in California,
kept two local managers, one of whom is Rose.
“We had a lot of hurdles to cover,” Rose said. “I’m happy to say that all the problems that were issues before won’t be now.”
Tax recovery
Several entities in the county work together to recoup lost real estate tax revenues using a variety of methods, including payment plans with parcel owners, foreclosures, sheriff’s sales and auditor’s sales, Metzger said.
“We are fortunate we have a good county prosecutor’s office who helps us on our end as far as foreclosure,” Metzger said.
The ultimate goal is to get properties back in active status, officials said.
Owners gained more options to keep their properties in recent years with extended payment plans and the ability to start second and third payment plans.
“That seems to have helped not only the treasury, but its helped people go through this economic problems they face every day,” he said.
To keep the tax recovery program going, 5 percent is skimmed off the recovered taxes, Metzger said. The fee is then split in half and paid to the prosecutor and treasurer’s offices to afford costs like salaries and administration of delinquencies, he said.
Delinquencies, Metzger said, started increasing drastically when the real estate bubble burst last decade.
“During the bad economy times, our delinquency … increased about a million (dollars) a year,” he said. And as it cleans up some delinquencies, new ones come out.
But as the economy recovers, so do parcel owners who previously struggled to pay.
“On a whole, I would say things are getting a little better,” Metzger said.
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