Alan Northcott - The Complete Guide to Investing in Real Estate Tax Liens & Deeds: How to Earn High Rates of Return Safely

The Complete Guide to Investing in Real Estate Tax Liens & Deeds

How to Earn High Rates of Return Safely

REVISED 2ND EDITION

Alan Northcott

The Complete Guide to Investing in Real Estate Tax Liens & Deeds: How to Earn High Rates of Return - Safely REVISED 2ND EDITION

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Northcott, Alan

The Complete Guide to Investing in Real Estate Tax Liens & Deeds: How to Earn High Rates of Return - Safely REVISED 2ND EDITION / by Alan Northcott

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN-13: 978-1-60138-899-5 (alk. paper)

ISBN-10:

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Table of Contents

Preface to Revised Second Edition

My initial encounter with the tax lien process was from the other side. I had owned my first house in a small Arizona town for about ten years when I decided that I could pay off the mortgage. Up until that time, as is the practice with residential mortgages, the mortgage company had been taking care of taxes through the escrow account, and I had been duly noting the amount from the annual statements to claim on my tax returns.

We paid off the mortgage in, I think, August of one year, and when I came to prepare my tax returns for the following year, fortunately in February long before they were due, I noticed that I had no property taxes on the closing statement from the mortgage company to claim. I checked with the county taxation department, who informed me that my taxes were going to auction on the following week in the tax lien sale.

Needless to say, I was shocked, outraged, confused, and a host of other feelings, particularly as I do not make a practice of not paying my bills. I did not understand how they could be selling my debt so quickly and how I had had no idea that a payment was due. I also was concerned what this would do to the credit rating I had nurtured so carefully. I was working away from home at the time, so I had to pay additional costs for overnighting a cashiers check to the collector to prevent the auction taking place.

A multitude of factors figured into causing this distressing situation. I had not realized, having not owned property before, that I should have been receiving a tax statement every year, even though I was not paying it directly. The address on file was incorrect in two respects it was a physical street address, when our small town had no delivery and only post office boxes, and it even was addressed to the adjacent municipality, not my own. Presumably, each year the tax statement had been returned to the county as undeliverable, but as they firmly told me, there was no requirement for the county to do other than send the statement, not to track down the owner. The onus is on the owner to pay, whether or not a statement is received. I was in the telephone book and frequently in the local paper from my involvement in town government, but the county made no effort in this regard.