Lake Charles signs with company to help with adjudicated property

April 22nd, 2016

Friday, April 22, 2016 2:46 PM

By Justin Phillips / American Press

The city of Lake Charles will now have some needed assistance in getting rid of adjudicated lots after the City Council approved an ordinance Wednesday allowing the city to work with a company focused on selling the properties.

Lake Charles will enter into an agreement with Archon Information Systems, which operates the CivicSource auction platform. CivicSource is a marketplace for different types of properties, including tax lien sale and adjudicated parcels.

Mayor Randy Roach amended the ordinance before it was approved by the council.

“If you recall several years ago, we entered into an agreement with these other taxing jurisdictions and the Lake Charles North Redevelopment Authority for the disposition of adjudicated properties,” Roach said.

“The agreement was signed by the taxing jurisdictions to allow us to contract with Lake Charles North Redevelopment Authority for the sale of the property. They need to be included in this ordinance in order for CivicSource to be able to do what we’re asking them to do.”

Brian Barrios with CivicSource said the company implemented its program in New Orleans in March 2015 and that since then 15 other jurisdictions have begun using the program.

“In a nutshell, what he have is a market-driven process where we take whatever properties you give to us, we post them up on our site at CivicSource, and an investor will initiate the sale prices by placing a deposit,” Barrios said. “It costs the governing body absolutely nothing.”

Barrios said that since the program began, CivicSource has dealt with roughly 1,000 properties and has brought in $17.4 million in “unbudgeted revenue for the various jurisdictions that have signed up.”

Roach said the city will ultimately be in control of what and how many properties are sold through CivicSource.

“So if we select one property to be sold, then they deal with one property. If we select 10, then they do 10,” he said. “We will refer to them the properties we want them to sell.”

http://www.americanpress.com/20160422-City-Adjudicated-Properties