(a) The auction notice shall be published at least two (2) times once a week, in one (1) newspaper of general circulation in Puerto Rico and edicts shall be posted for two (2) weeks visibly displayed in three public places of the municipality where said sale is held, such as town hall, the courthouse and the police station. Said notice shall also be displayed at the internal revenue collection center and the public school closest to where the attached property is located. Said notice shall indicate the date, place and conditions under which the public auction is to be held. The cost of said notices and edicts, of the attorney’s fees incurred during the attachment procedure, of the fees incurred in the assessment of the property, and in the case of commercial properties, the costs related to the environmental condition of the property as well as the fees established in subsection (c) of § 5936 of this title, shall be collected as part of the costs for the sale at public auction and be paid to the owner of the certificate of sale. The owner of the certificate of sale shall keep a copy of said edicts and notices published in the newspapers, as well as of the sworn statements of the administrators of the newspapers in which said notices were published. Those documents shall constitute prima facie evidence of the auction notice.
(b) The sale at public auction shall be granted to the highest bidder once the auction notice has been issued, as provided in subsection (a) of this section, and the term of thirty (30) days following the date of the notice of attachment has elapsed without the taxpayer or the owner of the attached asset having paid up the total of credit for the transferred tax debt, plus the applicable interest, surcharges and fees thereon.
History —June 26, 1997, No. 21, § 19; Aug. 12, 2000, No. 177, § 3.