Outside firm outlines tax-foreclosure process, timelines and fees for Crawford County

Michelle Grenwall, an attorney with the Wichita law firm Klenda Osterman, described to the Crawford County Commission on Wednesday how her firm conducts tax-foreclosure work for counties across Kansas and what hiring outside counsel would mean for Crawford County.

“I’m with the law firm of Klenda Osterman in Wichita, Kansas. I’m here to speak on tax foreclosure procedure — proceedings and the procedures that are involved in initiating a tax foreclosure sale on behalf of the county,” Grenwall said as she introduced herself.

Grenwall said her office performs the full range of tasks for counties that retain it: identifying eligible parcels from a treasurer’s list, preparing an initial “skeleton petition,” pursuing service and title searches, tracking redemptions, coordinating publication, running tax sales, and preparing final deeds and court filings. She said the firm’s work is intended to be cost-neutral to the county by adding attorney, court and title fees to each parcel as part of the statutory redemption costs.

Why it matters: County officials said they are facing a multi-year backlog of delinquent…