The County of Barrhead is in possession of a designated manufactured home (DMH) in Campsie.
The problem is they don’t want to be, but in order to dispose of it, the county decided its best course of action was to buy it outright for $1,500.
That is what councillors unanimously decided during their Feb. 5 meeting after accepting a recommendation from administration to purchase the home in an effort to recoup $781.98 in unpaid taxes. Since then the municipality has amassed another $1,024 in expenses.
On Dec. 5, the county attempted to sell it at a public auction, but they were unsuccessful.
County manager Debbie Oyarzun said the additional expenses are due to the costs associated with putting it up for auction, such as advertising, as well as the mobile home park pad rental.
“The situation is, after Dec. 5, we [County of Barrhead] take possession of the home, but we don’t own it,” she said.
Oyarzun identified four options the first one being is to do nothing.
“I don’t recommend that because we will continue to incur expenses, most notably the $500/month lot lease,” she said.
The other options are to attempt to sell it through a public auction or realtor, lease/rent the home or purchase it themselves.
Ideally, the best option would be to sell the DMH at a price that would allow them to recoup their losses.
Although, Oyarzun didn’t believe that was very likely, noting they already attempted selling it once.
However, she noted at the public auction they had put a reserve of $15,000, based on an independent property assessment conducted in December 2017.
Since then the county has approached two local realtors asking them if they would be willing to sell the home, and while they were not, they did provide them with a more accurate assessment of the home’s value: $1,500.
Part of the reason for the large discrepancy in appraised value, Oyarzun said, is because at the time of the original assessment, the home was occupied.
“It had heat, power and was in a condition that someone was able to live in it,” she said, noting the home, unless it was significantly renovated, is no longer habitable.
Oyarzun added the county’s assessor wasn’t able to inspect the inside, but they have since then and concur with the realtor’s assessment.
After consulting with Municipal Affairs, Oyarzun said the county could buy the home for the new appraised value of $1,500 and sell it privately, most likely through a newspaper advertisement. If they were still unable to sell it, the county would also be able to dispose of it, as they deemed fit.
Coun. Marin Schatz asked if they would be purchasing it from the original owner.
Oyarzun said no, saying that since they have sent all the correspondence to the owner, there has been no response. Basically, the county would be buying the home from themselves.
“What we would do is put the money into a trust and then essentially pay ourselves to offset the expenses we have incurred,” she said.
