Sparks fly at tax sale
Deputies step in to break up verbal sparring between bidders.
Deputies step in to break up verbal sparring between bidders at the Floyd County Courthouse.
It wasn’t business as usual at the monthly tax sale Tuesday on the steps of the Floyd County Courthouse. A bidding war on one property was followed by a heated verbal exchange between bidders that prompted sheriff’s deputies to step in to settle the dispute.
Tax Commissioner Kevin Payne was attempting to sell a mobile home owned by Larry Lemming at 412 Reeceburg Road. Lemming said the trailer was not specifically titled to him. Payne, however, said the trailer was on Lemming’s property and was taxed as personal property. Lemming owed taxes for the trailer all the way back to 2004.
Payne set the opening bid at $615.98. Lemming and Dwayne Richardson of Chattooga County engaged in a bidding war that reached $4,875 when Richardson finally dropped out.
At the close of bidding, Lemming and Richardson, who have been involved in a tax issue before, got into an argument that prompted deputies James Womack and Claude Richerson to intervene to send them on their own way.
Payne estimated that all told with fines and penalties included, the tax bill amounted to close to $12,000, but said he could only legally collect the amount that was due for the last seven years.
Lemming did make the full $4,875 payment for the sale within two hours of the auction Tuesday.
“The amount Lemming paid ended up being almost exactly the amount of the total taxes due for 2009-2016. Those were the years I could legally collect for,” Payne said. “It was nearly a perfect result.” Payne said the payment was $325.29 short of everything Lemming owed for the past seven years.