Frank Gray, writing for the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette, has a column on the consequences of failing to update the county on your address. A group of doctors, doing business as a corporation, bought some property. They used one of the doctors’ home address as the address for their corporation. The doctor moved 3 or 4 times, but the corporation never informed the county of the change of address. Taxes weren’t paid. The county sent out notices. A tax sale was conducted. Redemption notices were sent out. The corporation didn’t redeem its property. Eventually the tax sale surplus (funds from the sale in excess of taxes due) made their way to the corporation: $18,000 on a $550,000 property.
The corporation presumably blames the county for not working hard enough to find it. But, really, if you own property, make sure the county auditor has your proper address.
It does seem like County government has enough to do without hiring private detectives to make sure that people keep current on their addresses. Doesn’t seem like a major imposition. Most corporations give their attorney’s office as their address since attorney’s offices don’t move much (you can confirm or disagree with this, Doug) – that presumably would have avoided the problem.