Senate adopts conference report for bill on wholesalers, leasebacks and land banks amid heated debate over tax-sale changes

The Missouri Senate on the floor took up and adopted the conference committee report for Senate Bill 973, a multi-part bill that the sponsor described as largely reauthorizing statutory language with technical corrections while preserving consumer protections for residential wholesaling and sale–leaseback transactions. The sponsor told senators the package also reestablishes land-bank provisions that a court had previously rendered inoperative.

Senator from the twentieth, explaining the conference substitute, said the measure “contains the pieces that came out of the Senate” including wholesaler consumer-protection disclosures and a residential sale–leaseback protection provision that provides delayed-closing and notification protections for sellers — language the sponsor said had been enacted previously and simply needs reauthorization. “We’re not changing it,” the senator said, calling the changes technical and noting several provisions had passed both chambers and been signed into law before a court decision rendered them inoperative.

The floor then turned to a contested House amendment affecting tax-sale timing in the land-bank section. Senators raised repeated objections to language that removes a current two-year unpaid-tax requirement in certain county procedures. Senator from Lawrence called the provision “not godly” and said the change “is stealing from people who work hard,” warning that removing the two-year threshold could allow property auctions sooner than under existing law. Several senators asked that the matter be sent to conference or subject to additional oversight rather than adopted on third reading without fuller consultation.

Other senators said the land-bank language mirrors existing statute and stressed the bill’s stated intent: to restore previously enacted provisions that had been struck down by the courts and to add technical clarifications. The sponsor and supporters emphasized that much of the text had been in statute before and that the conference report’s changes are meant to reauthorize and correct, not to expand substantive authority.

Despite the disputes, the Senate recorded adoption of the conference committee report on the floor. Debate included calls for more oversight of large contracts and for clarification of limits on land-bank authority. Several senators urged greater consultation with House counterparts and recommended conference committee work where differences persist. The floor record shows the conference committee report was adopted and that the land-bank/tax-sale language prompted the most sustained opposition during the discussion.

What happens next: the conference report had been adopted on the floor; senators who expressed concern said they would continue to press for clarification and possible future conference negotiations to address the tax-sale language.