SANATOGA PA – Tax collections last month in Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township improved over those of April 2009, Treasurer Jennifer Marsteller reported Monday night (May 3, 2010), but she suspected they came at a heavy price: the economic misfortunes of victims of the local and national recessions.
Marsteller, who collects the property tax revenue on which the township largely depends to pay its bills, told the Board of Commissioners her office so far has received 87.45 percent of town and Montgomery County PA taxes due for 2010, up from 85.24 percent for the same period last year.
A total of $1,087,189 in tax payments streamed into Marsteller’s East High Street, Pottstown PA, office within the past 30 days, she said. Taxpayers who submitted their money before April 30 received a discount.
That’s the good news. The two reasons behind it? Not so rosy.
First, Marsteller said, banks have paid taxes more quickly on foreclosed homes in their portfolios than did the previous and now-ousted occupants. Second, mortgages granted for foreclosed homes that have been sold, or other homes that have been refinanced, increasingly are accompanied by escrow arrangements that ensure money is saved monthly to pay the tax bills.
“So, this is not a sign of good times returning,” board President Jonathan Spadt noted.
The latest foreclosure market report issued April 15 (2010) by RealtyTrac, a national firm that monitors foreclosed property trends, agrees. Foreclosure filings nationwide in the first quarter of 2010 — including default notices, scheduled auctions and bank repossessions — increased 7 percent increase from the previous quarter and 16 percent over the same period in 2009, it said.
One in every 138 U.S. housing units received a foreclosure filing between October and December 2009, according to RealtyTrac figures.
While the number of foreclosures within Lower Pottsgrove may not correlate as closely with national averages, the amount of local foreclosure activity remains significant. Six such properties – located on North Pleasant View Road, Pebble Beach Lane, Saylor Avenue, Augusta Drive, and two in Walnut Ridge Estates – are listed for disposal during May 26 (2010) property sales scheduled by the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Department.
Several of those are hold-overs from a sheriff’s sale list of 11 on April 28 (2010). Of that group, foreclosure proceedings were stayed on four properties, and five others were postponed until later sale dates.
The remaining two properties, on Allison Drive and Brookview Lane, were sold to new owners from whom the township will, eventually, also collect property taxes.
Related (to the Lower Pottsgrove Board of Commissioners’ meeting of May 3):
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