One of Editor & Publisher’s ‘10 That Do It Right 2021’

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Partly to mostly cloudy skies with scattered thunderstorms during the evening. Low 66F. Winds NW at 5 to 10 mph. Chance of rain 40%.

It’s that favorite time of the year when real estate tax bills need to be paid.

Just how does that process work again, and do mobile homes have annual taxes to be paid like real estate?

Illinois counties administer and collect such taxes each year. They’re based on the value of the real estate or mobile home as assessed by the county assessor.

In the spring, notice will be sent to owners advising the amount of value the assessor is putting to the property in question and the amount of taxes and deadlines by which they are to be paid.

On mobile homes located in mobile home parks, value is calculated by the square footage and age of the mobile home.

If the mobile home is not located in a mobile home park, there is no separate tax allotted to the mobile home. Its value is simply incorporated into the calculation of the value that the land it’s on.

So, if your uncle is living in his trailer in the back lot of your several-acre spread, you might have to bear a little higher valuation of your real estate and thus pay more tax.

Counties’ deadlines to pay the tax is split into two installments for both real estate and mobile homes. When the bill is issued, both installments may certainly be paid by the first due date.

If one or both due dates are not paid by their deadlines, the unpaid tax is declared in default, and some weeks or months after the second installment date, the unpaid real estate and mobile homes’ taxes are “sold” by the county to a tax buyer in a tax-sale.

Residential real estate or mobile homes have 2½ years after the sale date to have their delinquent taxes redeemed (paid in full) in the amount for all the years of taxes owed plus interest. It’s two years redemption for non-residential property.

The entire unpaid tax plus accrued interest must be paid within this redemption time. In residential property taxes, the buyer — at buyer’s sole election — may agree to extend the redemption period an additional six months.

If the delinquent taxes are not redeemed by the deadline, thereafter the tax buyer can go into court to ask a judge to transfer ownership of the real estate or mobile home to the buyer. After ownership is transferred, the buyer can take possession of the property.

What if there is no tax buyer who buys the taxes when auctioned by the county? This rarely happens with real estate, but does happen from time to time with mobile homes in parks because said mobile home is a piece of junk or has disappeared. Then the property goes to a person called the county trustee.

After the redemption expires, the trustee then can sell the property to buyers in what’s called a sealed bid sale, a scavenger sale or a surplus sale.

Illinois has been castigated as leading the nation in high property taxes. Such criticism ignores that other states gouge its citizens with other higher taxes.

But Americans love the services government provides.

Thy just fester over having to pay for those services.

Brett Kepley is a lawyer with Land of Lincoln Legal Aid Inc. Send questions to The Law Q&A, 302 N. First St., Champaign, IL 61820.