Finance Director Steve Brown, bottom right, discussed property taxes in arrears at council's online meeting. (Angela Brown/battlefordsNOW Staff)

By Angela Brown

In the chambers

City looks for outside help in dealing with outstanding property tax

May 26, 2020 | 8:53 AM

The City of North Battleford is attempting to recover $4 million in outstanding municipal property taxes.

Council approved administration’s recommendation to appoint local firm Battle River Law to assist the city with property tax enforcement services for a five-year period, to help reclaim unpaid property taxes.

It was mentioned during the meeting, the initiative was not in any way related to the COVID-19 situation. City finance director Steve Brown said he first brought the matter forward to council at the start of the year.

Brown said the organization awarded the contract has expertise in this field so is well suited to take on the project. The firm, he said, has helped other Saskatchewan municipalities through the tax enforcement process.

“I am pretty confident we will catch up within five years,” he said. “I wouldn’t say if we were doing it for a two-year contract we wouldn’t catch up. [But] within five years we will catch up.”

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Battle River Law was one of two firms to respond to the request for proposals for the contract.

Brown said the city has not had success using its internal resources to try to collect the outstanding tax dollars; that’s why it wanted to try an outside firm.

He said the cost for the enforcement will be borne by the property tax payer affected.

“The nice thing about using an outside firm is the city doesn’t incur any cost. Plus, they also have the expertise to do this for us where we don’t have in-house [specialty],“ he said.

According to the finance director’s report, as of May 19 the city has $4,165,226 in outstanding property tax receivables. From that amount, a substantial portion are behind for multiple years. Some residential properties are over $20,000 in arrears and date back five years or more.

From the $4 million outstanding, $2,095,198 is for within the last two years, while the remaining $2,070,028 is for three years or older.

Brown’s report stated the only cost to the enforcement process will likely be staff time. He said the firm provides a comparable cost to be incurred by the property owner affected, not the city. The firm proposed a residential base fee of $300, up to a cap of $700 for the property owner involved.

In the process, letters will be sent by Battle River Law to all property owners in arrears prior to commencing any enforcement process. Letters are expected to be sent this summer.

The aim is to encourage those with taxes outstanding to arrange a payment plan; otherwise the matter will move to the tax enforcement process.

Brown said most of the properties in arrears in the city are residential.

“The initial focus will be going after some of those arrears in the residential [sites] where the property owners are vacant. That is going to take the lion’s share of it,” he said.

He said usually about 50 per cent of cases will be resolved through the payment plan method, without need to take them to the next stage which would be enforcement.

If cases are not resolved through payment plan methods they will move to the Provincial Mediation Board stage. The municipality can then register a tax lien against the property if tax arrears are still unpaid.

Council raised the issue if a property, such as a commercial site for example, was contaminated and an environmental concern, the city would not seek to take over the property title for unpaid taxes since it would be a liability.

Brown confirmed the city would flag any properties identified as contaminated in advance.

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angela.brown@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @battlefordsNOW