Residents, city of Jasper buy tax-forfeited property

Two Rock County residents paid more than $10,000 each to repurchase their tax-forfeited properties, and the city of Jasper purchased a forfeited property for $1.
Rock County Commissioners approved the resale resolutions at their March 22 meeting when auditor/treasurer Ashley Kurtz presented them for approval.
She said two of the foreclosures were unusual in that properties were almost through the five-year foreclosure process that would have ended with a public auction.
“I’ve never had it that they have also been occupied houses,” she said. “This is a first time for me.”
Sara Misterek repurchased the house at 330 W. Warren St., Luverne, by paying $10,719.39 in delinquent taxes, penalties and other costs associated with the forfeiture process.
“I do apologize for allowing my property taxes to get so far behind,” Misterek wrote in a letter to Kurtz. “There were some extenuating circumstances, including an extended illness of more than a year and a job loss of almost a year.
“Regardless of why, it will not happen again.”
In a similar resolution, Sheri Rozeboom-Kloes repurchased the Martin County acreage at 117 21st Street, Hills, for $10,089.43.
“I have filed a surviving spouse tax-exempt form that will be processed as soon as I get the deed back to my property and goes into effect 1-1-23,” Rozeboom-Kloes wrote in a letter to Kurtz.
Kurtz explained a new law in 2021 allows spouses of honorably discharged veterans who have a service-connected disability to receive a market value exclusion, which reduces the market value of the homestead property subject to taxes.
The paperwork has been filed with the assessor’s office, Kurtz said.
An unoccupied manufactured house at 121 Spicer Avenue North, Jasper, was sold to the city of Jasper for $1.
“The city of Jasper plans to correct the blighted conditions by demolishing the building, capping off the utilities and grading the lot in order to provide for a shovel-ready lot for redevelopment,” wrote Jasper City Clerk Cortney Kunkel to Kurtz.
The property, which is located in Rock County, was forfeited in 2019. However, a manufactured home on the property had been sold and the title had been changed, leading to a delay in the forfeiture proceedings until the home’s owners removed the home.
The deadline to remove the manufactured home has passed and the foreclosure process was completed. This gives the city of Jasper the first opportunity to purchase the property before a public auction is conducted.