WILKES-BARRE — After more than a decade and nearly $54,000, Sugarloaf Township resident Charmaine Maynard is caught up on her real estate taxes.

“I want to have a party,” Maynard said as she approached the tax-claim office counter at the Luzerne County Courthouse on Friday.

She handed over a certified check paying the final $993.35 she owed.

The clock was ticking because Maynard’s property was among 1,684 scheduled for a Sept. 28 first-stage tax auction.

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Properties must be auctioned when taxes are at least two years past due unless the owners obtain removal through a court order, enter into a repayment plan or file for bankruptcy to get out of the sale.

Maynard, 64, said she got behind on her taxes years ago because her structure was assessed too high as she recovered from a fire, a snowstorm roof collapse and repetitive flooding that required additional drainage.

The assessment of her family homestead on Route 93 was reduced from $185,300 to $106,200 in 2008, but by then the debt had already snowballed.

She started tackling the delinquency in 2006 with payments on taxes dating to 1998, tax-claim records show.

Maynard said she relies solely on $1,650 in Social Security and can’t work because she suffers from seizures, fibromyalgia, asthma, a “crippled” right arm, atrophied leg muscles and other conditions.

To come up with the final payment, Maynard said she relied heavily on a diet of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and put off car repairs and surgical veterinary care for her service dog.

“Any money I could get, I just put towards it. I’ve been living like a pauper the last few months,” she said.

Her next priority: paying 2017 taxes before the end of the year.

The combined school, county and municipal tax bill on her property is $1,829 based on current tax rates.

The bill would be $1,363 more if she had not received the assessment reduction.

“What I’m paying now, I should have been paying all along,” Maynard said.

She is determined to live out her remaining days in the structure, which was designed by her father and has been her residence since she was 12.

Maynard vowed to continue supporting a push to get rid of property taxes. She served on the study commission that drafted the county’s home rule charter and ran a watchdog organization called Citizens Opposing Political Suppression, or COPS.

Her group organized a bus trip to a 2005 rally in Harrisburg supporting legislation to increase the sales tax to eliminate school property taxes.

On Friday, Maynard asked the tax-claim clerk for a report to verify in writing that no more delinquent taxes were owed.

At one point in the past, she thought she had been paid up, only to realize her receipt did not include a running total of what she owed.

“I’m done right?” she said, waiting for the clerk to nod her head before leaving the office with her service dog, Emma, at her side.

Maynard
http://www.psdispatch.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/web1_charmaine-2.jpeg.optimal.jpegMaynard

By Jennifer Learn-Andes

jandes@timesleader.com

Reach Jennifer Learn-Andes at 570-991-6388 or on Twitter @TLJenLearnAndes.