LINCOLN, Maine – The town received 15 bids totaling $40,862 this week on 12 properties acquired after the owners failed to pay property taxes, officials said Friday.
The list released by Town Clerk Amanda Woodard on Friday is due to be reviewed by the Town Council on June 8, its next regular meeting. The amount of money owed on the 12 foreclosed properties was not available Friday.
Eighteen homes or lots were originally on the tax-acquired property list. The owners of six of the properties made payments in the days leading up to Thursday’s bidding to prevent them from being sold, Treasurer Melissa Quintela said.
“We have a specific timeline that we follow,” Quintela said.
The automatic foreclosure date for the properties was March 10. Specific statistics on previous town tax-acquired property auctions were not available, but Town Council Chairman Steve Clay and Ruth Birtz, the town’s economic development coordinator, said it is likely that 18 represents the most the town has acquired in recent years.
“A lot of times the owners work out a payment plan,” Clay said. “Usually it is three or four years of not paying taxes before they go out to bid.”
If Clay and Birtz are correct, Lincoln’s problems follow Millinocket’s, which has had about 100 properties foreclosed since 2013. The closure of the East Millinocket paper mill, and the layoff of close to 200 workers from Lincoln Paper and Tissue LLC. early last year.
According to the latest census information, Millinocket and Lincoln are among the most populated towns of northern Penobscot County, with about 4,500 living in Millinocket and 5,085 in Lincoln, respectively.
The bids ranged from $100, on a lot at 17 Lee Road, to $15,000 on a property at 86 Go Devil Road. The latter property, and a property at 34 Perry St., each drew two bidders, while three people bid on a property at 15 Lindsay St., according to the bid list.
One property, on Orchard Lane, was not bid upon.