Memorandum
Date: October 8, 2024
To: The Honorable Lake County Board of Supervisors
From: Patrick Sullivan, Treasurer - Tax Collector
Subject: Consideration of Proposed Chapter 7 Tax Defaulted Land Sale
Executive Summary:
This item represents an initial description of a proposed Chapter 7 sale consisting of 3,323 parcels. Should your Board approve this preliminary proposal, the Treasurer - Tax Collector's office will continue preparation of this sale and return with a resolution to finalize the offering.
The tax collector is required to attempt to sell tax-defaulted property at either public auction or sealed bid sale within four years after the property becomes subject to sale, unless, by other provisions of law, the property is not subject to sale (Revenue and Taxation Code ?3692(a)). If no bids are received at a tax sale, an attempt must be made to sell the property at intervals of no more than six years, until it is sold (Revenue and Taxation Code ?3692(a)).
At this time, the Treasurer - Tax Collector's office has focused previous sales on all remaining properties in the City of Clearlake that have not been offered in the last 6 years, as well as all remaining properties throughout the County with an assessed value of over $5,000.00 not offered in the last 6 years.
The attached list of parcels represents the remainder which we are legally required to prioritize. These are typically properties with an assessed value under $5,000, and are concentrated in areas deemed to be "paper subdivisions." Going forward, if our office were to maintain the goal of taking 1,000 properties to auction annually, for the next 3 - 4 years we would generally expect no bids to be received on these properties. It is believed that the majority of these properties have been offered at a tax sale at least once in the past. The estimated cost of conducting these auctions would be approximately $500,000 - $700,000 annually to the general fund, with no anticipated revenue ...
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