Jim Caflisch, county Real Property Tax Services director, said two property owners accounted for about 75 properties that were foreclosed upon this year.

“This year was a little bit of an anomaly. We had one owner who had 50 properties in bankruptcy, and when the judge dismissed the case (they were foreclosed),” he said. “If you take those 50 out of the equation, those would have normally come in over a period of years going back seven years, the numbers wouldn’t have increased like they did. It was an anomaly, not a trend.”

Caflisch said there was also another property owner who had around 25 properties foreclosed this year as well.

“The tax foreclosures (outside of these two cases) have been steady over the two-year cycle,” he said. “The numbers are consistent over the last five years.”

Caflisch said they also have seen fewer bank mortgage foreclosures during the last few years.

“The further away from the great recession the less properties banks are holding from that period,” he said. “Bank foreclosures are slowing down.”

Caflisch, who is the chairman of the Chautauqua County Land Bank Corp., said the organization has done a lot of quality work improving neighborhoods throughout the county by rehabilitating housing and demolishing dilapidated houses.

“We have taken a number of distressed properties in good neighborhoods and put them in the hands of homeowners and back on the tax roles,” he said. “We have also partnered with a number of municipalities in the county on demolitions. We have put a serious dent in the number of dilapidated houses that needed to come down. We have made a big difference in the number of houses that needed to come down, and hopefully that will continue.”

According to data provided by the county Real Property Tax Services, the number of tax foreclosed properties in Chautauqua County during the past five years has increased by 35%, going from 277 in 2015 to 429 in 2019. The total number of tax foreclosures in the county this year was 429, a 16% increase compared to 2018 where there were 360. During the five years of 2015 through 2019, there was a total of 1,714 tax foreclosures in the county.

Jamestown had 173 judgments of foreclosure in 2019, which was 40% of the total for the county. During the five years of 2015 through 2019, there were a total of 608 tax foreclosure in Jamestown, which is 35% of the county total.