Roland goes to court

A week ago Friday (Apr 30), the city of Roland went to court. I would say generally it is a good thing that it is a rare event when the city needs legal representation in court. In this case, it was to transfer property to the city.

As you may have noticed, there is an abandoned house on the 200th block of South Cottonwood. It has been abandoned for over two years. The owner stopped refurbishing it, let it go back to the bank. There are back taxes, the bank doesn't want it, and so it sits.

There are legal remedies for the city to take the property, but of course that takes time when going through the legal process. We finally got a court date on April 30, and thought we might get possession then.

However, it turns out there is a new law on the books regarding the proper mechanism to handle the property tax refund of the tax certificate holder. (A 3rd party had purchased the tax certificate). That 3rd party is willing to release that, as long as he gets his money back. Now that has to work through the county treasurer's office, and will take a couple weeks.

So things are progressing. Not as quickly as we like, but of course everybody involved, the city, judge, treasurer, tax certificate holder, and all the attorneys want everything done right. So again, things are looking good, it will just take some more time.

So I, just like the neighbors, are anxiously awaiting the day when that property no longer an eyesore to that neighborhood.