In an attempt to recover taxes on manufactured homes that have not been paid in three years, the municipality of Parkland County in central Alberta, Canada holds an auction on the properties. The jurisdiction makes every attempt to notify the owners of the levy, but people sometimes are not aware of the arrears. Jennifer McAdam of Parkland County government, says, “Some of those properties are on vacant land, some are on farmland, some have houses on them, some have people living in them, some have been abandoned, some people have died and nobody has looked after the property — there’s all kinds of reasons why things fall awry.” The 2013 list of manufactured homes originally contained 23 homes, but by the time the auction occurs many of the debts will have been cleared and there may only be four or five homes, according to sprucegroveexaminer. But there is only a legal description for the properties, so most of the homes do not sell because they have not been seen. In the 16 years of the program, no manufactured home has been taken away from someone living in it, as MHProNews has learned.
