The D.C. tax sale list, featuring some 4,500 properties with back taxes totaling $38.2 million, was released Tuesday ahead of the mid-July auction.
While I don’t have time to run through all 4,500 addresses or owners, I did immediately settle on one notable debtor: D.C. Healthcare Systems Inc., the holding company for Jeffrey Thompson’s Chartered Health Plan Inc.
Chartered, as my colleague Ben Fischer has relentlessly reported, is in receivership. The District is suing the Medicaid managed care giant for $17 million. The collapse of Thompson’s firm left upward of $60 million in insurance claims unpaid. And Thompson himself is under investigation for all manner of campaign finance violations.
So it shouldn’t come as a shock that the Chartered headquarters building at 1025 15th St. NW is delinquent on its taxes to the tune of $68,584.60, according to the Office and Tax and Revenue list. The 29,000-square-foot building is listed as for sale: asking price $10.8 million.
The District will collect its real estate tax revenue, one way or the other. Either Thompson will pay the bill, or an auction participant will buy the lien when it comes up for auction July 15. Attempts to reach Thompson’s attorney have proven unsuccessful.
Thompson, like all other property owners on the list, will have every opportunity to pay the debt before the auction opens. Owners can still redeem after the lien is sold, but interest payments will accrue. Foreclosure proceedings cannot start until six months after the auction closes — a process that can take two years or more.
