Senate Bill No. 567
               Senate Bill No. 567

               PUBLIC ACT NO. 97-91


AN ACT CONCERNING MUNICIPAL TAX LIENS.


    Be  it  enacted  by  the  Senate  and House of
Representatives in General Assembly convened:
    Section  12-175  of  the  general  statutes is
repealed and the following is substituted in  lieu
thereof:
    In addition to  the  method  of  procuring the
continuance  of  the   lien  provided  in  section
12-174, the tax  collector of any municipality may
continue any tax lien upon any item of real estate
by  making  out   a   certificate  containing  the
information required by  the provisions of section
12-173.  Each  certificate   authorized   by   the
provisions of this  section  shall be filed in the
office of the town clerk of the town in which such
real estate is  situated  [within  the first year]
NOT  LATER  THAN   TWO   YEARS   after  the  first
instalment of the  tax,  or  the whole tax in case
instalment payments are not authorized, has become
due,  and  the   town   clerk  shall  record  such
certificate in the  land  records  of  such  town,
provided the tax  collector shall notify the owner
of such real  estate  of the intent to file a lien
by mail not  later  than fifteen days prior to the
filing of such  lien. Failure to notify such owner
shall not affect  the  validity  of the lien. Each
such  tax,  as  it  may  have  been  increased  by
interest, fees and  charges  provided  for by law,
shall remain a lien upon such real estate from the
date of the  filing  of  such certificate; and any
tax lien so  continued,  when  the  amount due has
been paid, may  be  discharged by a certificate of
the then collector  of taxes recorded in such land
records; but any  tax  lien  upon private property
which has been recorded in the land records of any
town for more than fifteen years FROM THE DUE DATE
OF THE TAX  shall  be  invalid,  and such property
shall be free  from  the encumbrance of such lien,
unless an action of foreclosure has been commenced
during such period  of  fifteen years and a notice
of lis pendens  filed  for  record,  and  the town
clerk shall, if  no  such  notice  has been filed,
upon  the  request   of   any  interested  person,
discharge such lien  of  record  by  noting on the
margin of such  record  the  words, "Discharged by
operation of law".

Approved June 6, 1997