October 2, 2013 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • Page 3 Midland Park Church unable to get extension on tax payments A set of unusual circumstances have left a Midland Park church facing the possibility of having its property listed for tax sale this year. Although a house of worship is ordi- narily exempt from paying property taxes, the Han Maum Reformed Church failed to file a statement of exemption with the municipality as required by state law when it purchased the property at 218 Irving Street in April of 2009, triggering the default. The church’s representative, Sung Jae Yi, offered the Midland Park Mayor and Council last week to hand over a cashier’s check for $5,000 towards its $18,000 debt right at the meeting if the governing body would agree to restructure the remaining $13,000. According to Borough Attor- ney Robert Regan, the church had been granted two previous extensions, in addi- tion to a waiver of its $17,300 interest penalty, but had not followed through on the payments. “It’s extremely unusual for churches not to be granted exemptions. Procedures were not followed. You got caught up. There is nothing we can do,” said Mayor Patrick “Bud” O’Hagan, who noted that when a taxpayer is in default, the rest of the taxpayers have to make up the amount. “The borough has to have 100 percent in tax collections. The taxpayers have been supporting you,” O’Hagan told Yi. In pleading his case, Yi explained that the original oversight in filing for the exemption was due to their pastor at the time having cancer, from which he ulti- mately died. A subsequent pastor gained the exemption status for the church but then left and took half of the congrega- tion with him. Those who remained have been unable to keep up with the payments agreed to with the town, Yi said, adding that parishioners have been extending personal loans to meet some of the pay- ments. We have recruited a new pastor, and we’d agreed to start paying, but we’ve fallen behind. We just couldn’t manage. It’s a hardship. We need to structure the charges until we sell the building,” Yi said. Following the initial settlement with the town, the church owed $50,000 in back taxes, without interest, which it was to pay in installments. Following an ini- tial payment, it still owed $36,000, the balance of which has to be paid by the end of 2013, or when the property is sold, whichever occurs first. O’Hagan suggested the church might want to get a short-term loan or take out a second mortgage, since the interest on either transaction would likely be less than the interest from a tax sale. “It’s up to the church to decide how they want to handle it,” O’Hagan said. The Han Maum Reformed Church, a South Korean congregation originally from Paramus, purchased the church building, which had previously been tax-exempt, from New Life Ministries, a contemporary worship church that had purchased it from the Eastern Christian Schools. Irving Park Christian Reformed Church donated the property to Eastern Christian when it disbanded in 2000 after 45 years due to dwindling membership.