Consultants outline lien collection, tax-warrant and trust-property program to return problem lots to tax rolls

Danny Barrett, director of Texas Communities Group, and Lynn Barrett, Mount Pleasant’s development services director, presented a municipal-lien and tax-warrant program during the council’s Nov. 4 meeting to pursue unpaid city liens, use tax-warrant foreclosure on abandoned lots and market trust properties held by the city and overlapping taxing entities.

The presenters said the approach begins with building a shared, searchable database of recorded municipal liens to identify repeat problem properties and generate immediate payoff figures for staff. "We build that database so we can have access to it and that we, on the Purdue side, can see which properties are kind of being consistent issues," Danny Barrett said.

Why it matters: Council staff and consultants said the program can produce revenue for code and cleanup work, remove blighted properties from city responsibility, and create inventory for targeted infill or public–private redevelopment. The consultants flagged tax warrants, allowed by Texas Tax Code §33.91, as a tool for properties that are vacant for at least 12 months and have five consecutive years of delinquent taxes (or three years with a municipal lien).

How it works: If a property meets statutory requirements and the city can obtain an affidavit of vacancy, consultants said the city can place multiple qualifying properties into a single action and pursue an expedited tax sale. Barrett described an end-to-end timeline of roughly three months from start to sale for warrant-eligible groups of parcels. For liens that do not meet tax-warrant criteria, the consultant said staff would update ownership records and send notice letters to encourage voluntary payoff before a sale.

Trust-property marketing: The presentation also covered marketing and sale of trust properties — parcels struck off to taxing entities after tax auctions when no bids meet minimums. "Those properties are not creating tax revenue," Barrett said. He described a management and marketing approach that would clean and advertise trust properties and return some resale proceeds to a cleanup fund. Barrett said the process can include an interlocal agreement so school, county and city entities share resale proceeds and approve individual sales.

Costs and fee structure: Barrett said tax-warrant actions themselves would not cost the city but proposed a 20% collection fee on recovered recorded liens, paid by property owners at collection, to defray program costs. Lynn Barrett said a similar program recovered $25,000 in paid liens for a prior city within the first six months of operation.

Council questions focused on ownership of struck-off trust properties, whether proceeds first reimburse cleanup costs, and how the program handles higher-cost commercial demolitions. "Any resale up to $2,500, that goes to a city fund used for cleanup of trust properties," Barrett said; amounts above that are divided per the tax code among taxing entities.

Next steps: Staff will return materials (ordinances and required public-notice steps) for council consideration if the council chooses to adopt the program.