Last week, The Augusta Press ran a story on the Green Meadows Golf Club and how it is due for a tax sale in August if the remainder of overdue taxes are not paid. Since then, we spoke with Chief Deputy Tax Commissioner Chris Johnson, who was able to clarify and educate on the tax sale process.
In the prior story, it was reported that the tax office worked with Green Meadows in an agreement that was afforded to struggling businesses in 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and economic downturn. Johnson first set the record straight on that.
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“There’s no official program. We help people all the time, businesses and residential owners who are struggling to pay their taxes,” Johnson said. “When people come to us after their taxes are due, we come up with a plan to help them. Those plans aren’t in writing. The only outcome is that if you owe taxes, you have to pay them.”
In the case of Green Meadows, one of these agreements was made.
“Green Meadows made an arrangement with us. They probably told us the reason they can’t pay is due to the pandemic.”
According to the Richmond County government website, Green Meadows paid $6,084.15 on November 15, 2019. That left an amount due for 2019 of $21,162.62. There are also $23,645.02 in unpaid taxes for 2020 at this time.
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“Green Meadows put down $6,000 and said by this August, they would pay the remainder of their taxes by that time,” Johnson said. “These agreements happen all the time and the only option that someone has is to pay their taxes. We will work with them, though, if they’re struggling and they let us know they’re struggling.”
A down payment on delinquent taxes (in this case, $6,000) is a sort of good faith payment on the taxpayer’s part, giving the tax commissioner’s office reason to believe that a property owner will eventually pay off the remainder of the taxes.
“Let’s say the property owner doesn’t complete the arrangement. Georgia code says that the tax commissioner has the authority to sell a property in lieu of taxes,” Johnson said. “There are two types of sales: judicial and non-judicial. In a non-judicial, which means nobody goes to court, we just follow Georgia code. We take it to public auction and the starting bid is the taxes and fees that are owed on the property. The tax office doesn’t make anything on the sale.”
The original property owner has 366 days to then redeem the property, which entails paying the auction-winner back the purchase price at auction and any fees the auction-winner incurred, and an additional 20% of everything that the auction-winner spent, according to Johnson. The original owner is incentivized to pay before that deadline comes.
“One reason that we take partial payments is that we don’t want the property. We just want the taxes,” Johnson said. “But sometimes we have to go to sale in order to get those taxes.”
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After that 366 day period, the new property owner can file a refusal to redeem. Once this has taken place, the new owner can rightfully make changes to the property. There’s no way the original owner can get it back. Not only is a new owner barred from making alterations to the property before filing; the person can’t even set foot on the property.
Johnson explained how this situation is beneficial either way to the new property owner.
“If an original owner comes back and spends $10,000 on a property at an auction, and the taxes are $2,000, the original owner has to pay that in order to get it back… From the new owner’s point of view, where else can you legally make 20% on your money in a year? It’s a win-win for the auction winner,” Johnson said.
In a judicial sale, the tax commissioner is suing the taxpayer in superior court in lieu of taxes. A judge must rule. Only in rare cases (like a recent bankruptcy) will a judge rule in favor of the taxpayer not having to pay the taxes, according to Johnson.
In this sale, a taxpayer only 60 days to pay up. There’s an attorney fee attached to the bill, now, but there is no 20% redemption fee in this sale. If a taxpayer is able to pay the overdue taxes in that 60 day period, there is no additional 20% fee.
Tyler Strong is the Business Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach him at tyler@theaugustapress.com
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