Today’s Bourbon County Commission meeting was quite a bit less animated than last week. Some interesting tax related facts from the meeting:
- The auditor is still going through past taxes and once he is finished, the commission said they would make the results public.
- Iola uses smaller fonts for their delinquent tax list in the newspaper. Doing something similar may result in lower printing fees.
- Othick Abstract has placed a bid on providing abstract services for properties that will be sold in the upcoming tax sale. Their quote is for $25 for basic work and $75 for more detailed 25 year Chain of Title work. Apparently most of the properties will only require the $25 fee while a few with more complicated histories might require the more in-depth research.
- There are a very small number of parcels that have been eligible to be sold all the way back to 2002. This may occur if there has been no way to contact the owner so the parcels were removed from previous tax sales.
- The Guardian Ad Litem fee included in the costs of the tax sale, pays for a lawyer to represent the interests of someone who may be unreachable for one reason or another. In the last tax sale, the total fee was $720 and Gilbert Gregory performed this service.
- In at least one case, the owner of a property is in the military and moves around frequently. Every time the county sends him notification, he has been relocated before the letter arrives. The Guardian Ad Litem represents people in this situation and there are some special rules that apply to people who are active members of the service.
- When the owner is not reachable, there are additional steps and expenses that are necessary to go ahead and sell the property. In the past some of the property that falls into this category has been left of the sale to avoid the additional expense.
Joe Bisogno and Bruce Hatcher were at the meeting from Timber Hills Lake Hunting and Fishing Adventures to ask about trying to promote Bourbon County as “Monster Buck Territory”. Joe Bisogno said he owns the rock quarry south of town and is interested in turning it into a place for paintball and AirSoft gun games and competitions.