BY JIMMY LAWTON
North Country This Week

OGDENSBURG – Ogdensburg sold 130 tax delinquent properties at auction for $392,772, but will only take in $196,698 from the sale after paying off delinquent school and county taxes.

On June 26 City Comptroller Tim Johnson conducted the annual tax delinquency auction for 271 properties with tax delinquencies dating back to 2018.

A total of 17 bidders participated, bidding on 130 properties, with one person bidding on 48 properties, another bidding on 33, and the other 15 bidding on the other 49 properties, according to a report from City Comptroller Tim Johnson.

Property taxes paid by the bidders totaled $382,772.

However the city is required to make the other taxing jurisdictions whole. Because of this regulation the city will pay the school district $111,029 and the county $75,045, leaving the city with $196,698.

“No one bid on 141 of the properties, so if these delinquencies are not paid at the end of one year, the properties will default to the city,” Johnson said in the report. “There were also 30 City-owned properties withheld from the tax sale and an additional 14 properties withheld that have either legal issues or a strategic interest associated with them.”

Johnson said 2018 delinquency for both the 141 no-bid properties and the 44 withheld properties totals $367,146.

However, it is likely that the number of these properties defaulting to the city next June will be much lower than 141 as many of the people who own these properties do not pay their taxes until the last minute.

The total number of properties that defaulted to the city this June, as a result of the tax delinquency auction in June of 2018 for 2017 taxes, was only seven, with a total delinquency of $18,888.