Grey Highlands has decided to proceed with a tax sale of Talisman Mountain Resort, but a representative of a court-appointed receiver trying to sell the property says he will not support the effort.
The municipality is owed about $1.6 million in back taxes and outstanding water and sewer charges.
Council decided Monday to revert to a tax sale after a court-appointed receiver was unable to produce a buyer over the past three months.
Mayor Wayne Fitzgerald said council decided the municipality had given the receiver more than enough time and now it's time to recover the money owed the municipality through a different avenue.
Last November, Blair Davidson of BDO Canada promised council that the entire sale process would be complete by Jan. 15.
The best bid was to be presented to a court by Jan. 7 for approval with a closing date of sometime in mid-January.
Talisman has been closed for more than a year.
Last fall Grey Highlands agreed to let a court-appointed receiver try to sell the property.
Davidson told council on Monday he still doesn't have a firm offer that he could take to the court for approval, but he hasn't given up on the process and wants to continue.
He says there are still two prospective buyers.
"One has provided an offer, but not a firm offer, and still no deposit," he said. He said the offer is far more than the $1.6 million owed the municipality, but without a firm, unconditional cash offer with a non-refundable deposit the bid cannot go forward.
Davidson said the next step would be to list the property with realtors to see if more potential buyers could be attracted.
That effort would take about three more months.
Davidson said a potential buyer has to consider that the ski lift and snow-making equipment will require considerable capital investments to modernize.
As well this mild winter wasn't a good year for the ski industry.
After a closed-door session, council announced that it doesn't support the receiver's request to continue and plans to revert to a tax sale.
"The request of the receiver was turned down by council and we're now seeking a remedy through the tax sale process. The first step is that we would go to the receiver and seek their support to move forward on (the) tax sale process. Should the receiver not support moving forward on a tax sale, then we would be seeking leave of the court," said chief administrator Dan Best.
Davidson told council during his update Monday that he won't support the move to a tax sale.
He said he wants to continue negotiations and hopefully get a deal that would help pay some of the other creditors, such as TD Bank, which is owed $4 million and is helping pay for some costs, including security for the property and buildings.
Davidson acknowledged that the property is being vandalized. He said the OPP had installed security cameras on the property, but they were stolen.
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