Did you pay your property taxes this year?

Almost everyone in Toronto does — but not quite. About 97 per cent of taxes are paid in full in the year in which they’re billed.

For some properties, though, taxes just pile up. The city keeps a list of those owing $500,000 or more.

Since the list began in 2000, 99 Toryork Dr., an industrial lot in North York, has stayed on it.

The property’s tenants pay monthly rent to the city, but after two decades of nonpayments and penalties, the owner’s tab is almost $4.5 million.

The city has sent bailiffs after the money. It tried selling 99 Toryork in 2008, getting no qualified bids, and tried again in 2012, 2013, 2015 and 2016.

The city could have assumed ownership; it chose not to.

Why is it so hard to collect the debt owed?

In extreme cases, what’s owing to the city is more than the property’s worth.

That’s certainly the case with 99 Toryork, which was valued last year at just under $3 million.

In a city tax sale, the required minimum bid is all taxes and costs owed to the city.

“Why would anyone bid on it?” Casey Brendon, Toronto’s director of revenue services, asked in an interview.

“Nobody’s paying the taxes, no one’s buying it, and the taxes continue to accumulate. It’s a problem.”

What’s worse, the owner, a numbered company controlled by a man whom several people say has died, owes at least $1 million more to Ontario’s Environment Ministry, which the city or another new owner would have to pay.

That money covers partial cleanup of chromic acid contamination on the property, which dates back to the 1970s.

The ministry says the chemical seeped into groundwater and nearby Emery Creek, and, despite years of work to address this, a consultant “has confirmed high concentrations of chromium” remain at 99 Toryork and must be monitored by the owner.

Such a combination of city taxes with liens by another government or other debts can make properties on the list “extremely unattractive,” Brendon said.

“An investor will simply go elsewhere to a less problematic property.”

But despite this, Brendon points out, the number of properties on the $500,000 list has steadily declined.

In December 2000, 45 properties owed the city $69.8 million in total. The latest list, compiled in March, reports 21 properties owe $25.7 million.

Over the previous year, nine properties owing a combined $8.7 million came off the list. “We take that to be a good sign,” said Brendon.

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A Scarborough property remaining since 2015, however, is 2627 Eglinton Ave. E., a derelict plaza building whose owner, at last count, owed $715,990 in taxes and other charges, including penalties assigned by the city’s municipal licensing and standards (MLS) division.

MLS has cited the property “numerous” times for “contraventions related to the lack of maintenance and upkeep of the property,” which haven’t been addressed, according to Mark Sraga, MLS’s investigation services director.

On Feb. 2, 2018, following an inspection, Toronto Fire Services was given authority to remove residents from the building until the company which owns it took corrective actions and proved the building’s wiring, heat, and air conditioning systems were safe.

The company is in care of Sittampalam Jeyapragasan, who is also the registered owner of 40 Stanland Dr., a Scarborough Village-area house Sraga confirmed “has a history” with MLS related to various property standards issues, and is under investigation as a possible illegal rooming house.

Attempts to reach Jeyapragasan at the home, and through an ex-wife who says she’s not in contact with him, were unsuccessful. The city’s mailing address for Jeyapragasan’s company is similar to that of a medical clinic where his ex-wife once worked.

The company owning 99 Toryork used another industrial building as its address. “The gentleman used to work here and sometimes he had his mail sent here. I don’t know why,” said a man there who wouldn’t give his name.

Another case which has baffled the city is a commercial condominium building, 222 Spadina Ave., where owners of many units stopped paying taxes between 2006 and 2016.

Between them, the owners owe the city $7,461,870.

“We need a better solution on that property in particular,” Brendon acknowledged.

After a failed tax sale, the city could assume ownership of the units, but their maintenance fees are also in arrears, and the city may be liable for other costs.

So far, that’s not been a risk the city is prepared to take, said Brendon.

At times, though, the city is prepared to write off portions of what’s owed to secure a sale.

Why not wipe the slate clean for 99 Toryork? Brendon said the city explored “creative solutions” for the property, but it’s still held in the delinquent owner’s name, so forgiving taxes would do that person a huge favour.

“We’re sort of reluctant to do that.”