CHARLESTON, W.Va. – West Virginia Auditor J.B. McCuskey is in the process of revising some of the more than 100-year old statutes dictating how delinquent property taxes are handled in an effort to help struggling property owners and communities.
On WAJR’s Talk of the Town, McCuskey said rising prices for food, prescription drugs and energy become major challenges for people on fixed incomes. The challenges become choices that can result in people, primarily the elderly, having to choose between property tax payments or living expenses.
Tax-delinquent properties can take up to three years to complete the process from notification to public auction. In many cases, those properties become magnets for issues that create problems for neighborhoods and public safety officials.
“It lowers property values, it is a fire risk and it is a mecca for drug use and other illegal activity,” McCuskey said,” Our office is the land administrator, so we’re in charge of auctioning and selling some of these houses.”
New guidelines would help property owners to stay in their homes by offering a payment program. Additionally, McCuskey wants to make it easier for municipalities or residents connected to the neighborhood to purchase and maintain or improve the properties.
“If we can get these properties into the hands of our municipalities and counties they can start to tear them down if need be to make sure everyone in the neighborhood is safe and to start to use that property for something the city and county have planned for the community,” McCuskey said.
Not all abandoned homes will have interest from local government or potential purchasers and that’s when a new state guideline could help fill other needs in the community.
“If the city and county don’t want it we also believe we can this very low cost housing to incentivize STEM teachers into counties in places where it’s very hard to find math and science teachers and to incentivize law enforcement officer in places where it is very hard to find sheriff’s deputies and police officers,” said McCuskey.
According to McCuskey, these proposed changes could also become an important way to also help reduce the homeless population and help battling drug addiction.
“A way for us to help people coming out of substance abuse recovery,” McCuskey said,” To find a place to live that they can own and value to rehabilitate themselves, along with the house.”
The changes will promote more community involvement, rather than encouraging investors to buy the low-cost properties who may have little or no stake in the community.