Tax Delinquent List Request DENIED! Please Help!

[Alexandra Wright]

Hi there, I'm a newbie in NC and called a  county's tax department to see if I could get a tax delinquent list. They were extremely rude, and told me that they can't give me that information. I politely stated that they must have a tax delinquent list if they send letters out to the owners of these properties to let them know they are delinquent on their taxes. They said they don't have a tax delinquent list, and they don't have an assessor's list either that they can give me because it wouldn't help them ( even though it actually WOULD because I would pay the back taxes on the properties...). She said that NO counties in North Carolina can give me a list of any properties, even though I pointed out that it's public information. I'm so frustrated right now. They wanted to know why I needed it so I told them I'm an investor, and she said that the information was only for the people who owed taxes, not for someone like me (in a very accusatory manner, I might add). How do I get a hold of these lists? I need an assessor's roll, vacant property list, and assessor's list with all of the parcels for various counties in North Carolina. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated! Thanks!

[Tehseen Baweja]

@Alexandra WrightYou may want to find out the section of North Carolina law that binds them to provide this information. For example, my county's website has this posted:

"Section 1.10 of the Texas Property Tax Code requires our office to provide electronic files to be made available to the general public. There are two types of files that we provide:

Tax Roll

This roll provides information on all properties collected by our office. The information included in this file is as follows:

• Account numbers
• Owner names and address
• Taxable value of property
• Exemptions
• Tax levy amounts

Delinquent Tax Roll

The delinquent tax roll provides the same information as above, but only on accounts that have a delinquent balance due.

Tax Rolls are available in the following formats:

• FTP- No Charge
• CD-$5.00
• Hard Copy- 10 cents per page
• Unfortunately the size of the tax roll files prevents our office from emailing them to requestors.