Sewer tax liens: More to story than Courier prints

This house down the street from former Freeholder Mapp's property
was incorrectly identified as his, with sewer liens due.

Plainfield's sewer lien auction list for the tax year ended June 30, 2007, is in the Courier again today. Are you on it?

You may not be one of the high profile -- and some not-so-high profile -- individuals singled out in last Friday's Courier story (see here), but you may want to check the list out anyway.

Why?

Because, as former City Councilor and Freeholder Adrian Mapp learned, a silly little shift may leave you falsely embarrassed.

Seems his name was printed in the paper as owing back sewer taxes on a property that he doesn't even own. Someone -- no one has 'fessed up -- shifted the lot number of the property when entering it, and named Mapp as the guilty party rather than a neighbor down the street.

Could it happen to you? You betcha.

And there's another annoying circumstance that could happen to you -- the teeny-tiny lien.

A reader contacted me when his property appeared on the lien list for a piddling fifteen dollars and change. Now the Courier story cited a spokesperson for the Plainfield Municipal Utility Authority as saying that the average bill is $127.25 per quarter, so you may well ask how these smaller amounts happen.

Truth is, many taxpayers don't pay their sewer assessments as promptly as they do their property taxes -- and therein lies the secret. The notice advises that unless the amount is paid by a certain date, interest charges will begin to accrue and must be included with the payment. Ratepayers are advised to call and get the accurate amount due before making their payment.

Many people evidently disregard this little notice, write a check for the face amount of the bill, and plop it in the mail.

Result? A teeny-tiny lien against your property for the unpaid interest, ticking like a little time bomb until the next sewer lien sale is published.

I can sort of understand the Courier's interest in the big cluck-cluck story, but I was intrigued with some of the other details.

For instance, scanning the approximately 1,600 entries, I noticed literally hundreds that were in the $2,000+ range, and hundreds more between $1,000 and $2,000. In fact, these probably make up the bulk of the list. One East End homeowner on a modest block owes in excess of $6,000. Another near St. Bernard's Church owes more than $16,000. Using the average computed by the PMUA, these amounts represent arrears of anywhere between two years to twelve years and more. Why would arrears be allowed to go on so long?

There are others --

• One of Plainfield's most active real estate investors/flippers owes many thousands on multiple properties;
• A former high-ranking state official is listed as owing more than $5,000 on a property;
• The interestingly named '57 Reservoir Avenue LLC' owes more than $9,000 on a commercial property; and lastly,
• Paramount Properties, now the city's largest owner of commercial real estate, is pegged at least once for more than $4,000.

This is just from a quick perusal of the legal notice.

In my mind the Courier could have had a far more probing story -- a problem I think of editors and tight deadlines rather than of a reporter's unwillingness to dig deeper. Any reporter would certainly be interested in getting to the bottom of why some ratepayers seem to get by forever and ever, and some are hauled up for public ridicule for about the price of a large pizza with one extra topping.

In any event, it is you, dear reader, who needs to be concerned.

Go out and get a Courier and check to see whether you are listed.

Remember the lesson of Adrian Mapp: Shifts happen.

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• Courier, 3/21/08: "Plainfield flushes out late payers" -- Archived here.

--Dan Damon

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