Published: Thursday, November 25, 2010, 9:03 AM
BAY MINETTE, Alabama — A $75,000 Fairhope parcel owned by Baldwin County Commissioner Tucker Dorsey sold at auction last spring for unpaid 2009 property taxes totaling $740.96, according to county tax records.
Baldwin County Revenue Commissioner Teddy J. Faust confirmed this week that Dorsey has an unpaid bill on the lot in Fairhope delinquent since Jan. 1.
Dorsey said the unpaid bill isn’t an oversight.
“I am (aware of the unpaid bill),” Dorsey said in an e-mail Monday. “As you know, I’ve been in the development business most of my career. It has been for sale for a few years. I need to sell it to clear the delinquent tax. Feel free to make an offer.”
The property that used to be home to Baypoint Apartments on Mobile Street is part of a tract purchased by Dorsey and two partners in Jubilee Development in 2005, county records show. The partners purchased the land where the apartment complex once stood, starting demolition of the buildings soon after, according to a January 2006 story in the Press-Register. The lots were never developed, and the partnership eventually dissolved with each getting several vacant lots.
Faust said the county typically sends notices to thousands of landowners each year when taxes due on Oct. 1 don’t get paid by Jan.1. If taxes are still delinquent by May, the land gets sold at auction to pay the bill.
Faust said that during the auction properties sell at a minimum for taxes. Participants can bid up to 15 percent of the appraised value of the property above the owed taxes earning 12 percent interest on the bid amount.
For example, a waterfront lot located in an unincorporated area has an appraised value of $100,000. Buyers at the auction can bid the delinquent tax value of $560.00 plus $15,000 excess and earn 12 percent interest per annum on $15,560.00. Bidders purchase the property knowing landowners have three years to pay taxes and penalties and redeem the land. If the land gets redeemed, the bidders get a 12 percent return on the bid price and get their money back. If taxes aren’t paid by the deadline, bidders get a tax deed to the property and become the official owners.
According to the revenue commissioner’s Web site, bidders can go beyond the 15 percent value during the auction, but will only get paid interest on the lower amount.
Faust said his office typically advertises between 3,000 and 5,000 parcels for auction each year. If no one buys the land at the sale, Faust said, it gets turned over to Alabama Department of Revenue for collection. Faust said numbers could be higher this year as a result of the down economy, but land sold in the auction almost always gets redeemed eventually.
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