County considers selling foreclosed properties

At Monday's meeting the county commissioners agreed to move forward in an attempt to sell properties the county obtained through foreclosure.

"We have acquired several properties through foreclosure," said county attorney Paul Schaub. "There is a process we can follow to sell those properties."

After the county holds a public meeting to decide whether or not to sell the properties, then it can set fair market value and begin to receive bids for each property.

"I would recommend moving forward just to see if anyone's interested in purchasing any of those properties, because case law is that if government like Cheyenne County owns a property that's not being used for governmental purposes then taxes have to be paid on it," Schaub said.

Councilman Harold Winkelman commented that selling off some of the property might be a difficult feat.

"We've tried to sell some of those before and just never got any interest at all," he said.

Although the county must set fair market value for each piece of property, if the only bids it receives are below fair market value, it can still proceed with the sale. Winkelman wondered if the county would even be able to generate enough money from sales to pay for the advertising required prior to the sales.

"If the bid is substantially less than the fair market value that you set but it's in the best interest of the county, you can move forward with it," Schaub said.

Schaub commented that even if the county were able to sell one or two properties, that was more tax money coming in and less the county must pay itself.

The county pays relatively small tax amounts on many of these individual lots, but the county currently owns 10 properties gained through foreclosure and those amounts add up, said county treasurer Diane Scott.

These properties are located in Sidney, outside of Sidney, Gurley and Lodgepole.