After a two-year hiatus, Chautauqua County is finally holding its property tax auction starting today. New this year, the auction will be held entirely online.

Individuals that want to participate must go to chautcoauction.com. There are specific registration requirements in place in order to participate, including providing a credit card and getting your signature notarized.

Originally there had been more than 800 properties that were going to be auctioned, but many of those have since been removed due to back taxes being paid. Taxes were continued to be accepted through the close of day Friday.

A special meeting was held Friday afternoon involving the chairs and ranking members of the Administrative Services and Audit & Control committees as well as County Executive PJ Wendel. The committee was reviewing the Chautauqua County Land Bank Committee’s transfer requests prior to the start of the tax foreclosure auction.

The tax auction will begin today at noon and run through July 21 at 10 a.m. for the cities of Jamestown and Dunkirk, and through July 22 at 10 a.m. for town and village properties.

County Land Bank Director Gina Paradis said it’s not too late to participate. “They can preregister right until the closing date,” she said.

Without registering, one cannot bid on a property.

All of the properties available are on the auction website at chautcoauction.com, as well as notes on “problem properties.” There are links for code violations as well.

Of the original 814 properties listed, Jamestown by far had the most listed with 364 properties, followed by the city of Dunkirk with 89 properties. Of the 27 towns in the county, 26 had at least one listing. Sherman was the only one that did not have anything on the original list. By Friday afternoon, the five properties in French Creek had been removed as well as the single property listed in the town of Dunkirk. Clymer had been down to one property early Friday afternoon while Mina was down to two and Gerry had three.

Paradis said those who go online Saturday will see the finalized list. No more properties will be removed after the auction begins.