ROCKLAND, Maine — A week after the city foreclosed on three homes for nonpayment of property taxes, five additional homes were taken for failure to pay sewer fees.
City Attorney Kevin Beal said, however, the city will work to return the homes to their former owners if payments can be arranged.
“Certainly our explicit goal is to avoid foreclosure and if that occurs, we promptly want to return the property to the former owner or a party of interest,” Beal said.
Despite repeated letters and telephone calls to avoid the seizures, however, five properties were foreclosed on March 17, the attorney said. He added that in the vast majority of the cases involving sewer foreclosures, the properties are returned either to the former owner, a family member or a bank that has a mortgage on the homes.
The properties seized because of the owners failing to pay sewer fees include a bungalow-style house on Dunton Avenue assessed by the city at $79,500. That property owner owed $428 in back sewer fees from 2013. Another is a two-story home on Jefferson Street assessed at $117,700 whose owners owed $200. A third is a Cape Cod-style home on Broadway assessed by the city at $152,300 which had a sewer lien foreclosed for $117.
Two mobile homes in Sunset Terrace Mobile Home Park also were foreclosed on for not paying sewer fees. One is assessed at $41,300 and owed $176 and the other at $27,600 which owed $242.
The city attorney said because of the foreclosures, anyone seeking to get the properties back must pay not only the sewer fees on the liens that foreclosed but also any subsequent sewer fees and any property taxes owed. The city’s costs for filing the liens also must be covered.