PE Approves Land Refund

Published 3:38 pm Tuesday, March 19, 2013

PRINCE EDWARD – A four-acre parcel of property was sold in 2010 at a tax sale, but the property did not exist.

County Attorney James R. Ennis noted that he had been advised by County Treasurer Donna Nunnally that “she had come across a situation where at a tax sale for delinquent real estate taxes-I believe in October of 2010, a gentleman had bid in the property at $3,500…The County attorneys don't handle the tax sales, that is done by an attorney out of Williamsburg historically.

Ennis further explained, “The gentleman that bought it in at the tax sale had it surveyed and discovered that the four-acre parcel no longer exists-that it has been absorbed into surrounding properties. And that's not a terribly unusual situation with the passage of time and generalized legal descriptions in older deeds that are 'plus or minus' or 'more or less' in their description of the acreage.”

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Giving a refund in this instance, however, isn't as simple as cutting a check.

State Code, a memo to the board cites, provides that Supervisors may issue a refund up to $2,500. Anything over that requires a court order from the Circuit Court judge.

Supervisors agreed with Ennis' request and approved the refund, agreed to request the judge to enter an order directing the treasurer to issue a refund of $3,500, authorize the treasurer to remove the property from the delinquent tax records and authorized the commissioner of revenue to remove the parcel from the County's land records.

The tax, it was also noted, was being paid on the property. While it was being assessed as a separate parcel, it was included as part of other properties.