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The city of Richmond is ramping up to handle a backlog of as many as 5,800 properties on which the owners have not paid property taxes.

This month, it will auction 22 of them to collect back taxes as part of a quarterly auction process initiated this year.

The city hopes to eventually increase the number of sales at the quarterly auctions to 60 or more properties, Nick Feucht, who works in the city’s economic and community development office, said Friday.

It is hiring two paralegals to work with a team of four in the city attorney’s office to handle the paperwork — an eight-step process — involved in a tax-delinquent foreclosure proceeding, Feucht said.

An auction is a fair and public way to handle tax-delinquent properties, he said. “We hope we can provide more opportunities for more entrepreneurs and investors to invest in these properties.

“One of the beauties of the process is the new owner gets a clean title. For people who want to invest in real estate and renovate a property, this is a safe and secure way to get a property with a clear title.”

Though the city is dealing with thousands of tax-delinquent properties, not all are eligible for foreclosure proceedings, Feucht said.