Foreclosure Alert Prods, Irritates County Notice Listed 189 Parcels Whose Owners Owed Over $600,000

Getting one’s name in the newspaper doesn’t necessarily mean the clipping gets cut out and sent along to Mom for her scrapbook.

A legal notice that recently ran in The Spokesman-Review covered two pages and delivered bad news to nearly 200 landowners - pay your delinquent property taxes, liens, fines and fees, or face losing your piece of ground.

The county ran the foreclosure notice July 14 as one of several attempts to alert owners to pending legal action.

Foreclosure isn’t exactly a popular discussion topic.

A few people whose names graced the list hung up when asked about the looming court action. Others couldn’t be reached at all because of unlisted or disconnected phone numbers.

Some of the names listed just weren’t the guilty party. The property was sold years before, and Spokane County records don’t reflect the change.

“We haven’t owned that in at least five years,” said Joanne Moyer, wife of state Sen. John Moyer, R-Spokane, whose name made the list. “It just really irritates me because we’ve done everything we can to get this taken care of.”

Even the city and state fell victim to lax records. The foreclosure listing shows both owing back taxes and fees, and governments don’t pay property taxes.

The foreclosure notice lists 189 parcels weighed down by nearly $625,000 in delinquent property taxes, road, utility and sewer assessments, and special fees owed to county taxing districts. A taxpayer must be at least three years behind before the county can start the process.

Totals owed range from $80 to a whopping $56,377.

Developer Wes Crosby owed the most, but didn’t want to talk about the reasons. “It’s being taken care of,” he said.

Frank Hoover owned the low figure. “That really irks me,” he said. “That’s $75 in fees and $4.29 in taxes.”

The county treasurer’s office dedicates a lot of time to the collection of delinquent taxes, said Linda Martin, tax collections supervisor.

The first notice of pending foreclosure landed in the mail in March. At least one more went out before a foreclosure lawsuit was filed July 14 in Superior Court - the same day the notice was published.

“We try to help people,” Martin said.

Often, it’s hard to find the land’s owner. People move away or change their phone numbers. The land changes hands through inheritance or sale.

Martin remembers a case about 10 years ago when she spent weeks trying to track down the owner of a North Side property. On a whim, she called the San Jose, Calif., notary listed on the deed.

The notary knew the owner.

When she reached him, he was so happy to get the notification before he lost his property that “he offered me a job,” Martin said.

Legal action stops if a property owner pays at least one year’s delinquent taxes and fees before the foreclosure lawsuit is filed.

“They could have gotten by with just paying one year,” Martin said. “That immediately gets them out of foreclosure.”

Once a suit has been filed, the county does a title search to discover if the land has changed owners. State law requires the treasurer to mail notices to the owner listed in the county assessor’s record.

The record isn’t always current, Martin said.

One person works on address and owner changes constantly, but the office gets hundreds and it’s hard to keep up, said Assessor Charlene Cooney. “It’s a never-ending task.”

Frank Hoover’s name made the foreclosure notice but he paid the delinquent taxes a day before the suit was filed.

Hoover has unknowingly owned the property since 1978. While he knew about the large parcel with the house, he didn’t know about the skinny strip he owned alongside.

When he paid off the land in 1991, he told the county that tax bills should be sent to him, not the mortgage company. Unfortunately, he didn’t mention the smaller parcel. Tiny tax bills for that piece kept going to the bank.

By the time he found out about it, he owed about $4 in taxes and $76 in fees and interest.

“It appears to me to be unreasonable to ask me to pay $76 in interest and costs to collect $4.29 in back taxes …,” Hoover wrote in a letter to Treasurer Linda Wolverton.

Once a property reaches foreclosure, the fees jump to nearly $700 a parcel, Martin said.

The title search takes a couple months. When that’s done, the treasurer again sends out new letters and runs another notice in the newspaper.

If an owner fails to bail out the property by year’s end, it could be sold in January. The minimum bid includes all delinquent taxes, fees and interest. Anything more than that can be returned to the owners if they apply for it.

Last year, 20 properties went to foreclosure and only nine were sold, Martin said. The 11 remaining properties were either in poor condition or unusable.

Patrick Kofmehl plans to buy back the parcel that shows him as the owner when it goes to public auction in January.

He sold the property in 1979 but the new owner failed to make payments, so he got it back in 1984. The property’s been in a legal battle ever since, and his attorneys have told him not to pay the back taxes.

This is the second time it’s been auctioned off. He bought it off the foreclosure rack in 1992 for $60,000.

“I guess I’ll just have to go down to the Sheriff’s Department and buy it back again,” Kofmehl said.

Anyone with concerns about possible foreclosure should call the treasurer’s office at 459-6446.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: CHECK THE RECORDS The treasurer’s office suggests that property owners make certain county land records reflect the current owner and taxpayer. If you have recently bought or sold property, or your tax bill has incorrect information, call the treasurer’s office at 456-4713 or the assessor’s office at 456-3696.