Bossier Parish is battling blight by selling adjudicated properties for the first time through the online auction firm CivicSource.
The Bossier Parish Police Jury has entered into a partnership with New Orleans-based CivicSource. It handles all aspects of the process of getting a property back onto a tax roll.
In Bossier Parish, 31 of its adjudicated properties are available to potential online bidders. The next auction is Wednesday, Jan. 6. The parish needs expertise to move properties that don’t sell at a sheriff’s sale, according to the parish’s public information officer Pat Culverhouse.
“We do not want to have the property in the first place. We want that property back in commerce. We want it to be out there doing good things and being useful and earning some tax revenue for the parish,” Culverhouse said.
CivicSource doubled in size last year to 50 employees. It aims to have its platform operating statewide this year. Governments in other states have used its services, including Tennessee and Washington, according to chief legal officer Stephen Morel. The firm has been very successful reducing blight in New Orleans. Its September sale brought in more than $3.3 million.
“This is something that has been off the grid for decades. The sale of adjudicated properties is a concept that is just completely foreign to most governments. The ability to do it at the level of efficiency with the level of legal compliance and with title insurance is just never been available,” Morel said.
Morel calls this auction process “investor-driven” and municipalities can expect many adjudicated property offerings to sell, some with competitive bids.
“We’ve seen successes in letting the market dictate the price of the auction not the government,” Morel said.
The soonest Bossier Parish’s listed properties could actually change hands is the April auction because there’s a 120-day window to track down all people connected to the abandoned property after someone puts down a $750 deposit through CivicSource.
Culverhouse says the Bossier Parish Police Jury will watch and wait to see how the online bidding process unfolds.
“What we’re interested in is not so much the money. We don’t want to have to be going out and keeping up the properties we might get. They might range from a sliver of land that’s a few feet to several acres,” Culverhouse said.
