Williams pays tax on city property
By Rochelle Moore
Published in News on April 2, 2017 12:25 AM
Goldsboro City Councilman Antonio Williams will avoid property foreclosure on his Center Street building after paying off years of delinquent taxes by an April 1 deadline.
Williams and Akeata Moore, owners of 143 N. Center St. in downtown Goldsboro, paid off the debt several weeks early, and Wayne County's foreclosure case was canceled.
The couple paid a total of $4,503.51, within four months, which included $3,423.51 in property taxes and interest from 2011 through 2016, and $1,080 in legal fees associated with the county foreclosure case.
"Mr. Williams is paid up through 2016," said Vicky Granillo, collection division manager in the Wayne County Tax Department. "He paid up everything on March 7."
Wayne County started its foreclosure pursuit after attempting to collect city, county and downtown district taxes through various methods over the course of several years.
Williams and Moore learned in October that the property was headed for foreclosure, which would have led to the building being sold at auction on the county courthouse steps.
The couple agreed to a payment plan with the county's foreclosure attorney to pay the debt in full by April 1. The payoff halted the foreclosure process.
Failure to pay the debt by the April deadline would have resulted in the county foreclosing on the property. Williams declined to comment.
The Center Street property still has a lien attached due to an unrelated 2015 court judgment requiring Williams pay a Currituck County woman $36,432 for an unpaid personal loan.
Dorothy Sellers and her husband, Percy, loaned Williams $36,000 to buy the building in 2007, court records show. He made payments for a couple years but stopped in 2010, which resulted in the Sellerses taking Williams to court.
The court order has not resulted in Sellers receiving any of the money owed, Dorothy Sellers said.
Williams is also facing a driving while license revoked charge and failure to burn headlamps infraction, stemming from an early 2016 traffic stop on U.S. 70. The case, which he sought to have dismissed in September, has been continued to May in Wayne County court.