SCHOOL DELINQUENT TAX LAWYER HAS OWNED STEALTH HOME FOR PAST 10 YEARS

By Juan Montoya

How does one own a $250,000-plus home on an exclusive resaca beside the Valley Inn Country Club
and the costly improvements on the lot don't appear on the rolls of the Cameron County Appraisal District over that entire time?
And how can the owner justify its existence – or the fact that he hasn't paid taxes on it – if  he and  his firm  Enrique Peña and Associates of Brownsville, get paid to collect the district's delinquent taxes?
Embarrassed administrators at the CCAD were back-pedaling today to try to explain how it was that the home of Peña on FM 802 just west of the railroad tracks past La Feria Road has escaped their appraisers' notice for all that time.
"We are in the process of having an appraisal team go on site to determine the value of the improvements on the lot," said one, requesting anonymity. "This was just oversight on our part."
For his part, Peña is said to "have been in contact" with the CCAD, but sources at his firm did not say why the firm – specializing in detecting properties that owe delinquent taxes could have escaped their notice.
A view of the CCAD's and Cameron County Tony Yzaguirre's websites indicate that the property is listed as account # 7794700000011000 and is located on Abstract 2, Richardson, Lot 11. However, only the lot's appraised value is listed since the year 2006.
The lot alone is valued at $118,234 by the CCAD. However, there is no notation under "Appraised/Assessed Value Improvements, indicating that no home is listed on the account. Gauging by the estimated value of the homes around it, the home is easily valued between $200,000 and $250,000. Over the five years that the home doesn't appear on the CCAD and Tax Appraisal Office, that could mean that Peña's tax bill could easily reach between $25,000 and $50,000, depending on how far back the appraisers and administrators want to go.
By statute, the CCAD is required to perform an on-site appraisal of all properties within its jurisdiction every three years. If the Peña home has been at the site for the last 10 years, how, some ask, could it have eluded detection by the Tax Assessor-Collector's Office, the CCAD, and by Peña himself, a delinquent tax specialist?
Pena and his firm were awarded the delinquent tax collection contract with the BISD on June 2009. They were in competition with Linebarger, Goggan, Blair and Sampson, L.L.P.; McCreary, Veselka Bragg & Allen, P.C., and Perdue, Brandon, Fielder, and Collins & Mott, L.L.P.
At the time of their selection, the company was in the second year of a two-year contract as the district's delinquent tax-collection firm. Its fee is 12½ percent of the tax liability to the district. For example, if a taxpayer owes $100, Peña is allowed to collect $112.50.
Trustees Joe Colunga, Minerva Peña and Enrique Escobedo voted for the motion along with trustees Rolando Aguilar, Ruben Cortez Jr. and Rick Zayas. Trustee Catalina Presas-Garcia opposed the motion.