Jefferson County, New York
Tax Deed Sale

The rural farmland and cheese factories created an excellent atmosphere for our last Buying Trip In Upstate New York. The City of Watertown is where we held the day of instruction. With only 26,000 residences, even the biggest city in this county is rather small.
We were there to attend a Tax Deed Foreclosure Sale. This county tax sale included 20 villages with plenty of properties that we toured on a bus the second day of the conference. However there were not any properties located in the City of Watertown. Some properties in the tax deed sale were located in the Town of Watertown, which is circumference of the City of Watertown. The city holds a tax certificate sale twice a year that includes a two-year redemption period and a 9% rate of return per annum.
This area is basically rolling hills and green pastures as far as the eye can see, and past that is water, lots and lots of water. Right on the border of Canada, reaching north on the west side of the county are several rivers, streams, lakes, canals, harbors and also a huge lake called Lake Ontario. There were numerous waterfront properties on Lake Ontario and the St. Lawrence River. This is what they call the Thousand Islands region.
The one area of concern for this auction was issues with the title of the property. According to the terms of the sale, the only encumbrances that would not be wiped clear from the property were first, the IRS Liens, and second, any mortgages that are funded by the Government. In spending one whole day at the County Office researching title to these properties, I found numerous mortgages associated with several properties of interest. These mortgages were recorded under bank and mortgage company names. This still left question as to whether the mortgage was held by the government or not.
However, if you were to research further into the bank or mortgage company, you may find that they went through bankruptcy and were now owned by the government, and therefore will remain with the property if purchased at the tax sale. After much warning to the clients and making them aware of the properties that might come with a mortgage, I was able to ask a question at the onset of the tax sale. My question was: Are there any properties in this sale that have a Government held mortgage, and which ones are they? The answer to my question was that there was only one, and they did disclose which one that was. Problem solved.
On the bus trip the next day we were able to drive around the county and look at around 15-20 properties that were being sold for auction. Many of these properties were still occupied. We were extremely conscious of this fact and stayed clear of the property lines in this case. There were a few houses we were able to enter and see the condition of the walls, floors, appliances (if any), roof, foundation, etc. We were able to see some of the beautiful sites of Sacket’s Harbor, and also do a little off-roading to get to some of the seasonal properties for sale.
The last day of the conference was to attend the auction. We all arrived separately, but some people sat together. It was a first auction experience for a lot of clients. The auction company (Brzosteks) that was hired to conduct this auction clearly had interest in the winning bid amounts. There were several comments made throughout by the auctioneer (Mr. Brzosteks) that he had a daughter getting married and needed the money. The bids on properties went very high, and occasionally even higher than the county assessment of the property, simply because he was very talented on getting individuals to bid.
We did have more than a handful of clients buy properties at this auction and get great deals. The best deal for the day was a client that attended from Spain, and purchased an apartment building in the Town of Ellisburg for $16,000 with an assessment of $204,000! What a deal!