Warren County woman facing tax foreclosure on home

For Clara Hargrove, home is definitely where her heart is.

“It means everything to me,” the 69-year-old widow says.

Inside her Macon home, family photos line her walls. Outside, her husband and son are buried on the land her family’s owned for more than 30 years.

Her husband, Richard, took care of the couple’s finances until his death in 1997. Since then, Hargrove says, paying the bills has been a struggle, and she's gotten behind.

Hargrove is now facing the threat of tax foreclosure on the property, having, at one point, owed more than $10,000.

It’s one of 20 properties that Warren County was ready to auction Friday morning as part of an ongoing effort to collect outstanding tax revenue.

County Manager Linda Worth says the county started the foreclosure auctions three years ago to collect hundreds of thousands in delinquent taxes.

The county will own the land that’s not sold.

“We don’t want to be property owners. We need to keep all our properties on the tax rolls, generating taxes,” Worth says.

In Hargrove’s case, her property barely escaped the auction block after she paid all but approximately $800.

The county gave her a week extension to pay off the bill.

“It feels good,” Hargrove says. “We’ll make it.”