A recent publication of Bourbon County Delinquent Taxes prompted a citizen’s inquiry to fortscott.biz.

An update from the Bourbon County Treasurer: “Liberty Savings was listed with a delinquent tax. They had been mortgage holder on that property but they no longer hold the mortgage so are not responsible for those taxes.”

The question was why the total amount due on properties isn’t listed with all years the taxes haven’t been paid by an owner. The citizen noted a large amount of money not being collected that could benefit county revenues.

Bourbon County Treasurer Patty Love responded with a PDF of a list of delinquent taxes that goes back for approximately eight years.

 

Love also answered the following questions:

 

What is the total of all year’s delinquent taxes due?

“As of 8/24/2020, the day I printed this report it was $2,405,683.28.”

Are people set up on a payment plan?

“We do not have any payment plans set up.”

What are the efforts the county does in trying to collect these taxes?

“We mail out statements advising when taxes are due.  We have no recourse to collect unpaid taxes, the only tool we have is the tax sale of delinquent taxes after they are 3 years delinquent.”

Are people put on a  payment plan of some sort?

“We have no payment plans.  We do take partial payments at any time and apply them to the oldest taxes due.  Some people will send in a payment amount weekly or monthly to try to get caught up, but we do not have payment plans because we would have no  way to enforce them.”

How could the county have property eight years delinquent if there is a tax sale every three years?

“If they do not sell at the tax sale, the county retains the property and they go on the next tax sale, or if there is a lien of some kind against the property we cannot sell it so it stays on this list.  Also, (Bourbon Commissioner)Lynne Oharah and (Bourbon County Legal Counselor)Justin Meeks met with Sugar Valley Lakes on the Hidden Valley properties and were going to work with them about getting them paid…  a lot of the small ones are part of that plan, so were not put on the tax sale. I think that plan has fallen through.”

When is the next sale?

“I want to have a tax sale the first part of next year, selling all properties that are eligible to sell. Due to the large amount, we will probably sell everything 2015 and older in the first tax sale (this is to keep from overwhelming the title search company) and I hope to have one later in the year for the 2016 taxes.”

“The tax sales are the only recourse we have to get people to pay their taxes so I feel we need to get caught up then go back to a tax sale every year.”

Click below for the list of delinquent taxes that have the total amounts that Love provided.