Number of city, county properties in tax sale rises to 1,397

The number of Warren County parcels "sold" for unpaid taxes was up this year as investors lined up to bid on them Monday.Warren County Tax Collector Pat Simrall said the list contained 1,397 parcels, some large and some small."(The list) looks like around 150 more parcels unpaid at the time we started getting ready for the paper," Simrall said, adding 985 of them were inside Vicksburg city limits.Under long-established procedures, owners of homes and businesses are provided property tax bills in December. Amounts due can be paid without penalty for more than a month, but afterward interest is added until July 1. After that, taxes are deemed delinquent and advertised twice for the one-day tax sale. Owners may still pay up until the moment taxes and penalties are paid by someone else.Investors usually bid, hoping the owners will redeem the property by paying them the taxes owed plus interest that continues to accrue at 1.5 percent per month. Although it rarely happens, a bidder may get a tax deed and title to a parcel after three years.Simrall said taxes on about 750 properties were paid between the first publication and Monday's sale, including three who had payments arrive via overnight mail just before proceedings began at 8:30 a.m.While officials couldn't pinpoint a singular economic condition for this year's increase, a few notable commercial properties were in the auction.Downtown buildings at 707, 709, 711 and 713 Clay St. that collapsed in January 2006 were among them with an Omaha, Neb.-based investment brokerage firm, Adair Asset Management LLC, paying $1,470, a bid slightly higher than its current tax liability. The building has been held by Clay Street Complex LLC, led by a Jackson law firm, but owned by Preston Reuther. Its operators have another year to outbid the amount to retain ownership.Adair also bid successfully on the former Thames Autoplex at Pemberton Square Boulevard and U.S. 61 South and two sites near downtown: the former Mississippi Hardware Co. building at 2400 Washington St. and the Vicksburg Compress warehouse at 2400 Levee St.Closed since 2004 after a federal investigation and a string of lawsuits, the dealership property is held by 61 Bypass LLC. Its principal, Joseph M. Bonelli Sr., said a partnership he led purchased it this year and it is being shopped for retail development. The group has two years to outpace the $20,560 bid.Mark Werner, owner of the former Mississippi Hardware structure, has one year to repay the company's $1,316.49 bid plus interest. The Vicksburg Compress site, currently in care of the E.A. Morgan Family Trust, of Montvale, N.J., was bid on for $47,500, more than $2,000 higher than its tax liability. One year remains before it transfers.Halls Ferry Station, a retail strip mall planned behind Walgreens purchased by Regions Bank in a foreclosure sale last November, received a bid from Green Spring Properties for $14,354.67 covering 2006 and 2007 taxes.Rubber producer Specialty Elastomer Recovery Inc., located in the same site as the former Rouse Polymerics, received a bid from Meridian-based Edgewood LLC for its 2007 tax liability of $4,852.95. The company was among a handful of bankruptcy filings in Warren County in fiscal 2007-08.Not all properties sell at the auction. If no bids are received, properties eventually become assets of the state of Mississippi.