Tax Sale

Faced with the loss of $600,000 in delinquency taxes and water and sewer bills from its biggest taxpayer - Sutton Towers - the borough yesterday filed an unusual court motion to reverse the effect of a bankruptcy filed by the apartment owner last month. Borough Solicitor James M. Vodges 3d said the motion asks U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Gloria Burns for permission to hold a tax sale of the 1,035-unit high- rises on the White Horse Pike. When Sutton Towers Associates, the Claymont, Del., firm that owns the high-rises, filed for Chapter 11 protection, a pending tax sale was canceled.

It seemed nothing ever went well for the elegant building. Known as White Hall, it was built in 1834 as part of Bristol College, an endeavor that failed when a dean reputedly began embezzling funds. After the Civil War, it became the Bridgewater School for orphans of black veterans. Lore has it that there was an alarmingly high death rate among the children. Earlier this century, the owner, who turned the five-story, Greek-columned house into apartments, died after falling over a banister.

Bargain hunting? You might find one or two at the Philadelphia Sheriff's Sale planned for Wednesday at 10 a.m. at the Civic Center, 34th Street and Civic Center Boulevard. However, caveat emptor. Unless you know what you're doing, you are more than likely to end up with a turkey than with the half-price filet mignon you expected. There will be 124 properties on the block this time, 43 that were supposed to have been auctioned in December and January. Sheriff's sales are used to auction properties that are being seized for back taxes, as in the case of Wednesday's auction, or that are being foreclosed by other mortgage lenders or lienholders.

For several property owners here, the tax man cometh as the grinch to steal their Christmas. But officials say their strategy to get delinquent taxpayers to fork over their arrears can also be viewed as a gift to those who already have paid up: The more money in the kitty, the less likelihood of a tax increase in 1995. During Monday night's council meeting, council members executed their strategy by giving reporters a list of taxpayers behind on their 1994 payments - hoping to embarrass them into anteing up. "Nobody likes to see their names in the paper," said Marge Odell, Mount Laurel's longtime tax collector, explaining the decision to publicize the names of delinquents.

The White Horse Lounge, a go-go bar with a history of arousing the wrath of local residents, has not paid its sewer bill and faces another date with local authorities. As of yesterday, the bar on the White Horse Pike owed $14,408 in back sewer charges to the Camden County Municipal Utilities Authority, according to officials. If the owner doesn't pay the bill by June 24, that same day the tax lien will be auctioned at a public tax sale at the borough's municipal building. The borough's tax collector, Howard Brown, said the amount due represents fees and penalties for the fiscal year 1993.

The City Council is expected tomorrow to authorize a firm to take preliminary steps toward a sale of about $17 million in city liens to be purchased by a private corporation. The sale, if it goes through as hoped, would be modeled after the successful tax-lien sale conducted last year by Jersey City, which sold more than $40 million in liens on residential and commercial properties to a private corporation. The Camden sale would include sewer-tax as well as property-tax liens, officials said.

For years, residents have complained that the county's collection of delinquent real estate taxes owed by city property owners was ineffective. For Chester, where property tax collection rates usually hover between 75 and 80 percent, unpaid taxes are a serious concern. In 1993, for example, 3,700 of the city's 14,500 properties were declared delinquent at the end of the year. City revenue from real estate taxes this year is expected to be about $8 million - a third of Chester's $24 million budget.

Though Mayor Vincent Scriboni is repeating predictions that his financial woes will soon be resolved, little has changed a year after he became the borough's biggest tax delinquent. "We're certainly in better shape than a year ago," he said in an interview last week. Yet the building that Scriboni owns at 215 W. Clinton St. in Oaklyn is once again up for tax sale, and the mayor now owes $26,665 in back taxes and sewer fees. That debt places him second among 15 delinquent owners of property in this borough of 4,400.

The avalanche of assessment appeals in Chester County continues. There were 4,200 appeals filed by the Sept. 2 deadline, bringing the total number of appeals filed in three years to 12,700. While the number of homeowners filing appeals is down this year - nearly 3,500 residential appeals were filed in 1991 and almost 5,000 in 1992 - the number of business appeals has continued to grow. There were 150 appeals filed for commercial and industrial properties in 1991, increasing to 315 in 1992 and 527 in 1993.

Bucks County District Attorney Alan M. Rubenstein is hustling to beat a convicted drug dealer to the fiscal punch. Rubenstein said he would go to court today and ask Judge Ward F. Clark to order George J.B. Reitz Jr. to pay $25,800 in back taxes that Reitz owes on a 130-acre, $3 million horse farm in northern Bucks County. Reitz's attorney said Reitz had the money to pay the back taxes and thus avoid a scheduled tax sale of the property, Wingait Farms, in Springfield Township.