Complaints of Erroneous Property Tax Notices Jump

Hundreds of Los Angeles County property owners may have received tax delinquency notices in error, judging from what Assistant Treasurer-Tax Collector David Collins called a “higher than normal” number of complaints from citizens after a bulk mailing was sent out this week.

The problem may have resulted from a problem with the computer system, Collins said. “What we think has happened is, in some processing instances a payment that came in timely was processed as if it had come in late. What we’re seeing is people who said they paid their taxes truly are getting penalty notices.”

Collins said processing mistakes usually amount to less than 1% of delinquency notices sent each year. Officials do not know if there were more mistakes because the agency departed from its usual practice of phased mailings and sent out 290,000 notices on Monday.