County Offering Time Shares in Online Auction

Ventura County is staging an online auction today to help sell 153 time shares at Oxnard area beach properties in an effort to recover more than $300,000 in back taxes owed by their owners.

Beginning this afternoon, anyone with access to the Internet can bid on vacation weeks at the 25-unit Channel Islands Shores resort or at neighboring Mandalay Shores resort’s seven townhomes, within a block of the ocean. Minimum bids range from $1,190 to $3,390, depending on the unpaid tax amount.

Treasurer-Tax Collector Larry Matheney, who was elected to his post last year, inherited a backlog of time shares with tax bills delinquent by five years or more. Matheney said bidders at the county’s annual tax lien sales had little interest in coastal time shares, which appeal more to vacationers than local investors.

“We can’t afford to bring the buyers here ... so we had to get the offer to them,” he said.

By holding a virtual auction, Matheney thinks thousands more prospective buyers worldwide will be able to bid on the time shares compared with the dozens expected to show up Friday morning for an old-fashioned, in-person tax sale at the Ventura County Government Center. At that 9 a.m. auction, up to eight properties in Fillmore, Oxnard, Santa Paula, Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley, with a total of $553,000 in unpaid taxes, will be offered.

Among those bidding on the time shares will be the companies that currently operate the resorts.

Ryan Doyle, manager at Mandalay Shores, said his employer is interested in acquiring as many of the 52 available weeks as possible in the online auction, which begins at 3 p.m. today and concludes at 3 p.m. Friday.

“These are nonproductive accounts, we don’t receive dues on these,” Doyle said. “Our goal is to buy them and put them in the hands of people who want to vacation here.”

Accommodations at the two resorts include one- and two-bedroom units. The time shares are fully furnished, with full kitchens, color televisions and whirlpool tubs or outdoor spas.

Like Kern County, which stopped holding traditional tax auctions two years ago in favor of the Internet, Ventura County will use online auctioneer Bid4Assets Inc. of Silver Spring, Md., which is charging $36.59 for each time share being offered.

The company has contracts with more than 40 government agencies, including the U.S. Marshals Service and the Department of Energy. In California, the company has worked with Kern, San Diego, Sierra and Lassen counties.

Jenny Monroe, the company’s marketing vice president, said the Ventura County auction has been promoted on the firm’s Web site, www.bid4assets.com, and in online and print ads.

“The goal is to recover the back taxes and get the property back to revenue-producing status,” said Phil Franey, treasurer-tax collector in Kern County.

Franey said his office has significantly improved collections by transferring tax sales to the Internet.

During its final three in-person sales, Kern sold from 44% to 64% of the properties it offered. Since going online, it has had three sold-out auctions and never sold fewer than 71% of the available parcels.

“On the Internet we can open up the bidding 24/7.... It’s provided more traffic and greater exposure,” Franey said. “If done well, it’s a no-brainer.”