City gives owners chance to redeem forfeited properties

Property owners will be given a chance to redeem their forfeited properties to the city government due to tax delinquency in a still to be scheduled public auction of these properties.

Former Cebu City Councilor Joey Daluz III said that the former owners could match the bid of any bidder so that they could redeem their properties.

The public auction should have been held this month after City Ordinance 2363 or the Real Property Public Auction of 2013 was approved last June.

Section 3 of the ordinance states that bidding should be scheduled by the City Treasurer’s Office sometime this month or 90 days from the approval of the ordinance.

Treasurer’s request

However, the City Treasurer’s Office through Assistant City Treasure Tessie Camarillo asked the City Council for an extension.

Camarillo said the CTO had yet to complete collating data of the forfeited properties and asked that the auction be held instead this December.

The City Council however failed to agree on the extension request during their session last week and referred the request to the Committee on Laws.

Daluz said that the ordinance was aimed at creating income from these properties, which are lying idle and unproductive.

According to the inventory report of the CTO, there are 139 residential properties with a total market value of P56 million while 13 residential buildings is expected to give an additional P23 million to the city.  /Correspondent Santino Bunachita