Real estate firm asks court to stop auction of properties

CEBU - A real estate company has filed a petition for injunction against the provincial and city treasurer of Cebu Province and Naga City, respectively, to prevent their levied property from being sold in a public auction scheduled today.

MRC Allied Industries Incorporated formerly known as the Makilala Rubber Corporation and Rosario Vivares asked the Regional Trial Court to nullify the warrant of levy issued by the City Government of Naga and the Provincial Government against its properties in Barangay Cantao-an and Cogon for not being able to pay real property taxes since 1997.

MRC Allied Corporation owns 89 parcels of land in Cantao-an and Cogon while Vivares also owns 19 parcels of land in the same barangays, which have been levied by the government after they failed to pay taxes totaling P73,779,063.34 including penalties.

Provincial Treasurer Roy Salubre and Naga City Treasurer Maria Gabilan issued the warrants of levy against the properties of the petitioners in September.

The local governments of Cebu and the City of Naga have scheduled a public auction today at the Naga City Hall for interested buyers of the properties.

 But, the owners of the property questioned the warrant of levy and asked that the scheduled public auction be stopped by the court.

They claimed that the warrant of levy was defective for allegedly having not complied with the provisions of Section 258 of the Local Government Code which requires personal notice to the property owner.

They claimed that the warrant of levy was not personally served to them. They likewise claimed that the amount of tax due is not stated with particularity in the warrant of levy.

More over it allegedly did not comply with the mandatory requirement of advertisement and sale of the levied properties as provided by law. They likewise claimed that the tax treatment of the properties were incorrect as it was classified as commercial and industrial lands when these were supposed to be agricultural.

The petitioners claimed that a simple ocular inspection of the properties would readily show that 90 percent of it are undeveloped and are actually devoted for planting trees, raising crops and livestock.

They also claimed that part of the taxes imposed by the local government units have already extinguished by prescription.

Under Section 194 of the Local Government Code, the petitioners claimed that the prescriptive period is only five years. – Fred P. Languido/NLQ (THE FREEMAN)