Have you failed to pay your property taxes on your home in Onondaga County?
If so, you are not alone. Just in the past year, there are currently over 2,000 households that have outstanding unpaid property taxes in Onondaga County.
The inability to pay your property taxes can arise from several different variables.
It could be a financial issue, where you intended to pay your property taxes at the end of the year, but just recently lost your job or got demoted.
It could be a choice, due to the lack of understanding of how the city acts and carries out recouping properties that owe delinquent property taxes in Onondaga County.
Or it could be a property that you inherited, that already had accumulated delinquent property taxes and now you are left to handle the situation.
There are several reasons, that you can find yourself in a situation where you accumulated delinquent taxes on your home.
Our goal is educate you on the timeline the city works of off to seize your home and also any alternatives you may have to avoid foreclosure (tax), avoid the severe credit hit and move on with your life.
Onondaga County Property Tax Information
When it comes to Onondaga County and understanding the timeline and process in which they act and notify the homeowner that there property will be seized if property taxes remain unpaid is a big question mark.
From our experience dealing with homeowners who have not paid there property tax bill, typically you are looking at about 2-3 years of unpaid delinquent taxes before the city will act.
The city does offer a repayment plan for homeowners. This program is meant to give relief to the homeowner and allow them make payments towards there debt.
In order to get into the program, you will have to put a minimum of 25% down towards the total amount owed in property taxes.
So if you owe $10,000 in delinquent taxes, you will have to make an initial down payment of $2,500 to get access to this program.
From then on, you will be set up on a repayment plan over the next 2 years. Making principle and interest payments each month until the debt has been repaid.
The issue that homeowners tend to have is that, if they fail to stick to this repayment plan and do not make payments, you will have no other options with the city. You will not be able to get back in the repayment program and in order for you get prevent foreclosure you will have to pay the total delinquent tax amount in full.
Typically, the city will send you a letter giving you about 2-3 months to make arrangements to pay the tax bill in full or they will seize your property.
This puts the homeowner in a very difficult situation because basically if they can not come up with the money to pay off the lien, then they will face a tax foreclosure and a severe credit hit.
If you are in this situation, you only have 2-3 months to act and do not want to have a foreclosure on your credit score then you do have another option.
Depending on the specific situation, you maybe able to sell your property to a real estate investment firm. They will purchase your home in cash and be able to close in about 20 days or on your timeline. The reason this is beneficial is because a typical home sale can take up 6-12 months with the minimum timeline from purchase to closing of about 75 days.
Wrapping Up |Will Onondaga County Seize My Home For Unpaid Property Taxes?
In short, yes Onondaga County will seize your property for unpaid taxes. However, you do have some options to relieve yourself from these taxes. Once you are under the impression that you will not be able to pay your property taxes, we suggest that you contact the city of Syracuse and make arrangements to get on the repayment program. The longer you wait, the less options you will have and more expensive it will be.
If you are in a situation where you have to sell your house immediately or you will face foreclosure, give us a call at (315)516-8023. We would love to hear about your situation and see how we can help. To learn more about how the process works, click the link below.
We hope that this post gave you some brief education on how Onondaga county works when it comes to unpaid property taxes and a few options that you have if you are delinquent on your home.
If you have any comments or concerns, please leave us a message in the comment section below.
HS Property Funds
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(315)516-8023
www.hspropertyfunds.com