Mount Hope, NY – Hundreds of Orange County property owners still haven't paid property tax bills they got a year ago.
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Most of those with the largest unpaid bills were businesses or developers. Each who could be reached had his or her own explanation, from disputes over the taxes to the-dog-ate-my-homework variety.
Two large tax debts exist for 160 bucolic acres in Mount Hope, where a biotech company, Breonics, split the property and sold 52 acres to a Brooklyn branch of the United Talmudic Academy, the Satmar Hasidic school system.
Ted Mozes, a Spring Valley lawyer who handled the closing for the United Talmudic Academy, said his clients didn't know about the debt until the Record contacted them.
"We haven't received any bills," he said. "Obviously, we're concerned; we're not delinquent deadbeats."
But the address used both by the town for its bill and the county for two subsequent warning letters was the same used by the Record to contact the school: 5301 14th Ave., Brooklyn.
The bill has gone unpaid for a year. The Record's letter was answered within days. [Record]
You might not have realized that water pipes can be taxed. But one of the county’s biggest tax debts belongs to the owners of a Cornwall pipeline once used to channel well water to the long-defunct Star Expansion factory in Mountainville.
Some Kiryas Joel businessmen bought the wells four years ago for their village’s use, but apparently didn’t buy the pipe connecting the wells to the factory. And the unpaid taxes on that pipeline — still owned by Star Newco Inc. — now total $73,156, county records show.