An Interesting Paul Clark Move
This to me appears to be a public relations move more than anything else.
New Castle County has halted sheriff’s sales for homeowners delinquent on their property taxes. County Executive Paul Clark said he issued the executive order Wednesday because of recently released statistics from Dover that show Delaware has the third-highest mortgage foreclosure rate in the country.
The move will avert about two sheriff’s sales a month, County Sheriff Trinidad Navarro said. About two or three homes have been sold because of delinquent county taxes each month since 2007, he said. Only 1 percent of property taxes don’t get paid in an average year.
Don’t get me wrong, as Clark says, any little bit of relief helps. But why was wasn’t this the first thing Clark did last year upon talking office. It’s like Clark just discovered we have a foreclosure problem not only in the county, the state and the country. Perhaps he just discovered it because he has a primary opponent now.
Whoa!! I thought the Sheriff in Sussex was a guardian of the people’s rights against the excess and abuses of the Federal Government and corporate greed….
you mean a (horrors) Democrat from New Castle is doing the job the Constitutional Sheriff of Sussex by the poeple and for the people was just upstaged?? by a, by a, by a, ummm DEMOCRAT?? i feel the vapors coming on….
WOW!! news worthy event here!!
now, watch all the attorneys, title companies and banks SCREAM blue murder!! those fees and intrest rates are ticking away while this is all halted…. LOL
couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of crooks
Check – the moratorium is primarily a PR stunt but the amnesty may help people like me. http://www2.nccde.org/newsdetails/default.aspx?ID=138
Two homes a month lost to back taxes is less than one percent of the total foreclosures. Plus, the number of homes lost to mortgage foreclosures are supposed to get much, much worse this year while the back taxes numbers don’t look like they vary.
NCC has been able to break even in the last couple of years on the back of the transfer taxes from foreclosure at sheriff sale —since the realty market tanked.
There is no way in hell Clark can lose his mortgage foreclosure cash cow and not raise taxes as he’s promising not to do in this election year.
Also. a large amount of NCC’s pass-through money is dedicated to funding the purchase of foreclosured homes in neighborhood stabilization program funds, etc.
There is little to no incentive on federal, state or county levels to actually keep people in their homes by, say, helping with principal write-downs (e.g. Elizabeth Warren: FHFA Must Help With Principal Write-Downs fdl.me/wEPtmu ). The programs in place aren’t successful. (The new mediation program may not be successful either unless the state decides to fund an outreach component.)
I do appreciate that the new executive dictate will cut me a break on fines and fees if I can pay in full before May 31st.
As has been duly noted here, from various anony trolls in the DL threads (almost always after negative comments I made about Paul Clark), I’ve been several years delinquent in paying NCC property taxes.
I was finally in a position last year to dedicate a budget stream to get the taxes up to date. I phoned the NCC Finance Dept. in the fall of 2010 to set up a payment plan. I was told that xxx dollars monthly for 12 months would bring me up to date and a note was placed on my account.
I faithfully submitted the payments only to come to find that the county was adding on a massive pile of additional fees and fines throughout the year despite the payment plan.
It was worse than any bank!!
I was not caught up as promised but at least I’m no where near the level of delinquecy where they’d go after my house, thank the lord. I may be able to finally get caught up if NCC approves the amnesty –
From the web site:
“Clark will seek County Council approval for an amnesty program for penalties on back taxes. Under his proposal, any residential property owner with back taxes due can pay them in full through May 31 and have all outstanding penalties waived.”
Aoine – it has NOTHING to do with mortgages or banks. It’s just property taxes.
More style than substance — way more.
But the NJ liked Paul’s style so much that they put it on Page 1. (Or was that their way of making nice after hammering him for buying ice cream with campaign funds?)
That’s their way of acknowledging they don’t have much else to go on the front page.
@anon- thanks I was readling too fast…
however… seeing as its taxes…welll Iwonder what Wyatt Earp says