Dock and Roll

22 Jul Dock and Roll

Your a-list of delinquent properties is primarily sourced out from 3 rolls: tax roll, assessment roll, treasurer’s roll.

This list will lead you to the next step in investing properties. You just could not move further without this. Thus, it is essential to have a good list first.

Tax roll is the required list itself. It enumerates all properties with tax delinquencies that you get from the county.

Assessment roll is a more technical document that is source out from the assessor’s office. It details use key or use code, which informs people of the “uses” of a particular property. It tells you whether the property is commercial, residential, industrial, agricultural, etc. It is relatively similar to land use plans. It just does not enumerate real properties with delinquent taxes. Even then, the assessment rolls can still help you filter your list. The parameters provided by the use key are valuable in identifying properties in terms of land value, location, etc. It pinpoints properties that are likely subject for sale even when the owner is not real property tax delinquent.

In fact, 50% of properties I bought do not currently owe any taxes. Owners of such properties just got frustrated with their properties, likely because of property damages, town blight or idle use. Those properties just became burdens to the owners, inflated more by real property taxes. The willingness and urgency of such burdened owner to sell their property at a cheap price is equally relative to a tax delinquent. Though my investment focuses on tax delinquents, burdened owners can also be in the list.

The last source for the list is the treasurer’s roll. It is source out from the treasurer’s office. It is similar to assessment rolls because it is a shared document between the assessor and treasurer. Unlike with the assessment rolls, the treasurer’s roll has a tax base. It tells you how much real property tax is paid annually.