Who Wants To Buy Montville's Burned-Down Daycare With A Tax Lien?

Does anybody want to buy a badly burned former daycare center with a collapsed roof that owes thousands of dollars in back-taxes? 

The Town of Montville hopes so.

Today, the property formerly known as Creative Care Daycare LLC will be auctioned off at noon. The starting bid is $18,570.45, which covers just the cost of the back taxes, sewer liens, interest and administrative costs on the property.

Meanwhile, the daycare burned down in November. The cause of the fire was deemed an arson and it has since been referred to the Connecticut State Police, who continue to investigate who started the fire, according to Montville Fire Marshal Raymond Occhialini. 

No arrests have been made regarding the fire, at least not yet, Occhialini said. Meanwhile, the town has since foreclosed on the property after the owner of the daycare center, Wendy Summers, didn’t pay taxes for at least two years, Montville Tax Collector Joan Zujus said.

The starting bid for the property, which is located at 1127 Old Colchester Road, is $18,570.45, according to John Francis Duggan, a lawyer who is overseeing the auction of the property. That is what the town needs to break-even on the property, he said.

However, roughly a $150,000 mortgage was taken out on the property, which is still outstanding, Duggan said. If the bid goes higher than the $18,570.45, it will go to the owners of the mortgage, Duggan said.

Background

Creative Care Daycare was licensed to hold 44 kids, but was lucky to have half that number in the past few years, according to a 2012 interview with Summers. She said the down economy hurt her business and she could no longer pay her property taxes.

“I’m kind of upset but there’s nothing I can do,” Summers said in that interview. “The economy is just kicking our butts. There’s no help out there. I wish there was but there’s not.”

Then, in November of 2012, the daycare center caught fire and was badly burned. Occhialini quickly established that the fire was set intentionally, but state police have yet to determine who started it. Nobody was hurt in the fire.  

Since, the roof of the building collapsed over the winter from the weight of the snow. The property is still zoned for a daycare center, or could be turned into a residential lot.