CROWN POINT | It was a $782,800 mistake.
White Hawk Country Club fought the 2002 property assessment that pegged its 7-acre slice of land and $16,000 pole barn at 4300 W. 109th Ave. at nearly $783,000.
"We started getting tax bills that were just unbelievable," said John Marnell, White Hawk Country Club controller. "It isn't worth the amount in taxes."
In 2006, the parcel's value was reduced to $170,200 by the Center Township assessor, but Lake County only repealed the taxes based on the higher assessment for 2004-05 and 2005-06, county records show.
Nothing could be done about the $43,283.43 in taxes owed from 2002-03 and 2003-04.
White Hawk declined to plunk down the $85,606.78 in back taxes for the property, and it became one of 10 Crown Point parcels sold in Lake County's tax sale last month.
Crown Point was home to only 1 percent of the total parcels sold across Lake County because of delinquent property taxes, county records show.
"In every city and town, the number is almost the same every year," Lake County Auditor Peggy Holinga Katona said. "The majority is always in Gary. Hammond has several. East Chicago has several."
The smattering of Crown Point properties up for sale dotted every section of the city. A Times review of those properties found a number of well-kept, midsized homes in newer city subdivisions.
A two-story tan home at 1620 Edith Way in the Penn Oak subdivision sold for the most, county records show.
The owner owed about $10,000 in property taxes that went unpaid since the second installment of 2004-05 tax bills. Chicago-based Cley Equities LLC bought the property for $200,000.
The sale is not final. Katona said the owner still has a year to redeem the property before the deed changes hands.
In the meantime, Cley Equities earns about $52 in daily interest on the sale's surplus, or the amount it bid for the property minus what is owed in back taxes.
Cley Equities also bid on an older two-story home at 765 Princeton Court for $175,000.
Professional tax sale bidders bought at least six of the 10 Crown Point properties that were sold, county tax sale records show. The purchases brought in nearly $745,000. About $123,000 of that was owed for back taxes and penalties.
