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Operating Policies

Policy: Procedure for Community Development Groups for Requesting Property in Treasurer’s Sale / Original Date: February, 2016

PURPOSE: This policy provides a procedure on Community Development Corporations’requests for property to be put into Treasurer’s Sale.

POLICY STATEMENT: The City must have a procedure for Community Development Groups requesting properties to be placedin a Treasurers’ Sale. This policy provides a procedure and eliminates any confusion when requesting properties to be processed in a Treasurer’s Sale.

PROCEDURES:

These procedures apply to creating a list of propertiesto be put into the Treasurer’s sale. The properties will be requested by the CDC, evaluated through feasibility studies by the URA and finally approved by the Finance Department for inclusion in the sale. Properties will not be approved for Treasurer’s sale if they have impediments to acquisition such as bankruptcy, holding for another agency, already in Reserve, unable to acquire from the delinquent tax collector, etc.. There may be other legal and policy reasons for denying CDC requests for properties to be put in the sale. In all cases CDC requests will be either approved or a reason for denial will be given. Two years of tax delinquency are required for a property to be requested.

The Finance Department will review the recommendations of the URA through staff and any disagreements with the URA decision will be clearly stated in writing to the CDC that requested the property for sale. The staff group may discuss the feasibility study with the URA and the CDC before making a final decision.

The CDC’s must provide requested properties in an electronic Excel file so that the City can run it against its property database to locate the properties. CDCs are responsible for correctly identifying lot and block and address of requested properties. If the CDC information is incorrect, the Finance Department cannot guess at the correct property and requests will be returned as “Denied – Property cannot be located in records.” A schedule of submissions will be sent to CDCs and all required submissions must be made by the cut off dates.

Procedure for CDC Request for Property to be included in the Treasurer’s Sale:

  1. Eligible properties for CDC requests include properties of all values (including small properties of negligible value) but the full charge of City preparation for sale will be included with all sales, even when the actual value of the property is much smaller than the charges.
  2. The Finance Department will accept a list of properties from the CDCs that they wish to acquire. This must be submitted in an electronic Excel format with correct identifying data by the date specified.
  3. The Finance Department will review the requests from the CDCs and determine which properties are available for inclusion into the Treasurer’s Sale from City records. If a property is denied for sale, a clear reason for the denial will be stated by the City. All requests will also be reviewed with delinquent tax collectors for payment plan or other encumbering status.
  4. The CDC should also send a feasibility study to the URA, Richard Snipe, 200 Ross Street, Pittsburgh, PA 15219 by a date specified. These applications will include the required feasibility study and any other information requested either by the URA or the Finance Department.
  5. The URA will send feasibility studies to the Finance Department with a recommendation for review and the Finance Department will make the final determination of eligibility for sale. The Finance Department will notify the requesting CDC of approval or denial. CDCs can purchase only properties approved by the Finance Department.
  6. The Finance Dept. will not process any properties to sale if there hasn’t been a current Feasibility application sent to URA and the URA has not made a recommendation. The URA and the Finance Department cannot process any properties to sale if all application materials are not in the required format. Submissions of the Excel list must be in electronic format.
  7. The Finance Department will establish deadlines for submission of requests for sale, feasibility studies, and any other requested information in the requested format. These deadlines are set to allow all necessary background work to be done on properties to be included in the sale. Requests that do not comply with deadlines may be considered for the next available Treasurer’s Sale. Deadlines apply to both Three Taxing Bodies staff and the URA.
  8. Two weeks after the Redemption period the CDC’s must send a deposit of $200.00 hand money and promissory note for each property approved for the Reserve. Make checks payable to “Department Of Finance”. Failure to send hand money & promissory by due date will cause CDC’s to be in Default and will not be able to place property into future Treasurer’s Sale.
  9. The Finance Department will issue a Settlement Statement and there will be a charge to cover the costs associated with bringing properties to sale. Currently the average cost is approximately $800.00 but charges may be higher or lower depending on actual costs incurred. Part of the monies will be for the title report payment.

Effective Date of Policy:

This policy is effectiveFebruary 5, 2016,and will remain in effect until changed by any subsequent policy.