Village of Alix councillor Barb Gilliat, left, swears her oath of office from village CAO Michelle White at the regular meeting of council Oct. 20. ECA Review/S.Salkeld
Alix village council will likely never recover a large unpaid property tax debt even though they can acquire the property in question they heard Oct. 20.
Councillors heard the report at the first regular council meeting following the recent municipal election.
Village Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Michelle White gave councillors a report on the municipality’s efforts to auction lot 15a, block 1, plan 6146RS (tax roll 34) at a public event Sept. 22, which she noted did not sell.
The lot in question is zoned residential. During discussion it was stated some buyers prefer not to buy tax recovery parcels through auction because there are too many rules involved, and instead prefer to wait until the municipality owns the property and purchase it directly.
“The reserve bid, which was equal to the assessed value of the property, was set at $29,500,” stated White in her report to council.
“The outstanding taxes on the property are $9,049.13.”
Municipalities can recover unpaid property taxes through a process in the Municipal Government Act (MGA) that includes auctioning the property; any profit over and above the taxes owing are returned to the original property owner.
As the property didn’t sell at the auction, on paper the village has a few options yet to recover the unpaid taxes noted the CAO, including taking title to the property to sell it, taking title to use it for municipal purposes or simply leaving the property in the name of the current owner.
However, as councillors read the report they came across a letter from Taxervice, the company Alix hired to help them with the tax recovery process.
The letter, signed by Gary Burnside, president, stated, “We note that there is a CRA judgement registered against the title: writ registered Apr. 9, 2019 in the amount of $87,933 plus costs.
“(If Alix owned the property) we could then approach CRA on your behalf and attempt to negotiate how the proceeds of sale would be shared.
In the worst case scenario, CRA would insist on the full sale proceeds, in which case all arrears, penalties and interest would have to be written off,” added Burnside.
She noted, as Burnside did, if CRA insists on keeping all proceeds from the land sale, at least the property would likely become tax generating again.
Mayor Rob Fehr wasn’t optimistic the Village of Alix will get any money even if it manages to sell the property.
“I bet you we won’t see a dime,” said Fehr.
Councillors unanimously agreed to acquire title to the property in question with the intention of selling it to recover the unpaid property taxes.
Stu Salkeld, Local Journalism Initiative reporter
ECA Review
