Bill Laitner

Detroit Free Press

Tens of thousands of Wayne County residents, most of them Detroiters, are behind on property taxes.

If the county assumes ownership Jan. 1, officials acknowledge that most can't be sold for much.

Authorities said they strongly hopes to keep residents in their homes and work out payment plans.

Owners of about 20,000 properties in Wayne County — including thousands of homeowners in Detroit — got an early holiday gift Tuesday from the Wayne County treasurer: five more months to pay their back taxes.

Instead of taking ownership through a massive batch of tax foreclosures scheduled for Jan. 1, the Wayne County Treasurer's office said it would announce this week that taxpayers have until May 26, 2015, to pay up.

The decision was welcomed by officials at the Detroit Land Bank Authority, which was expected to take possession from the county of all the reverted properties in Detroit and would have added them to its already bloated inventory.

"We have plenty already, believe me," said Craig Fahle, director of public affairs and senior adviser at the authority.

"Our current inventory as of Oct. 1 is about 34,000 properties," all in Detroit, and the authority is scheduled to accept another 6,000 in January, Fahle said.

"Anything that gives people more time to make payment arrangements is a good thing. Our goal is always to make sure that people stay in their homes," he said.

Altogether, Wayne County has begun tax foreclosure proceedings this year on nearly 75,000 properties, including 62,000 in Detroit alone. This week's decision affects properties that changed hands since October 2011, which meant they had a new "reverter" clause added to their deeds.

This was to be the first time that the treasurer's office enforced the new provision, which would have had the properties "revert" to the county Jan. 1, 2015, if taxes weren't kept current for at least two years, Chief Deputy Wayne County Treasurer David Szymanski said.

Authorities have repeatedly tried to inform property owners that time was running out, but many homeowners still might be ill informed about the odds of starting the new year by losing their houses, Szymanski said. Out of 22,000 Wayne County residents who this year were served with legal notices that they could lose their properties "only some 2,000 taxpayers came forward to pay the taxes and protect their properties," he said.

More could be done to inform them, including wider use by the county of "door hangers" — notices attached to doorknobs by roving foreclosure clerks, Szymanski said.

"We have to have a stronger messaging campaign — they do have to pay," said Keith Stallworth, managing director of the nonprofit Detroit-based Black Caucus Foundation of Michigan.

State Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Detroit said she welcomed the extension of the foreclosure deadline from January to May but said it won't help those who most deeply in debt.

"Giving people more time is good, but if the resources aren't there, they're going to be in the same situation at the end of May that they are now," Tlaib said. She hopes the state Legislature passes a bill to relieve taxpayers from state-mandated interest and penalties that quickly mount on back taxes, as long as a property owner agrees to a payment plan, she said.

Contact Bill Laitner: blaitner@freepress.com or 313-223-4485.