Eye on Ohio - In-depth, underreported and high-impact journalism that promotes the public good

Plaintiff, Defendant, and Judge: How some Ohio counties entrust the same officials to collect taxes and wipe tax liens

By Emily Crebs and Lucia Walinchus | December 29, 2021

This project was funded by a grant from the Pulitzer Center and provided by Eye on Ohio, the nonprofit, nonpartisan Ohio Center for Journalism. Please join the free mailing lists for Eye on Ohio as this helps provide more public service reporting. Shortly after Athens County started a land bank in 2018, Matt Bunting put in a land bank application for an abandoned church next to his property. Neighbors had taken turns cutting the grass, but overgrown trees had fallen on a house, garage, and car. 

After waiting years, Bunting had given up hope. He said land bank officials offered the property to the Buchtel Village Council. They declined, knowing that Bunting had applied. Finally a neighbor asked if he might try instead, so at least someone would be able to prevent squatters or worse. Officials approved the neighbor. 

As part of its investigation into how public officials divvy out land bank properties, using machine learning methods, Eye on Ohio focused on counties where property foreclosures skip sheriff sales and go right to a city or land bank. Under an Ohio Revised Code Section 294’s “expedited administrative tax foreclosure,” Board of Revision officials theoretically only hear foreclosure cases where the properties are abandoned and there are no other legal issues. But in most small counties, BOR members bring the cases in the first place, and later decide who gets the properties. That’s because of overlap between city officials, the BOR, and the Land Bank.