DICKSON, Justice.
After two landowners, delinquent in paying fees and penalties owed to a regional sewer district, successfully petitioned the Carroll County Circuit Court to remove their properties from the list of properties subject to a tax sale, the lienholder sewer district appealed, challenging the trial court's interpretation of Indiana Code section 13-26-14-4. We hold that the statute does not apply to prohibit a tax sale of these properties.
Twin Lakes Regional Sewer District is one of roughly 100 non-municipal regional sewer districts in Indiana, and it serves areas in Carroll and White counties. Richard Ray and Patricia Alford each own property served by the District. Both the Ray property and the Alford property had outstanding sewer bills owed to the District, which had perfected liens against the properties and certified those liens to the Carroll County Auditor for collection with the upcoming property tax bill. On August 26, 2013, the Carroll County Treasurer and Auditor filed a joint affidavit and joint application for judgment against the listed properties ordering that the properties be sold at a tax sale to satisfy obligations for the unpaid sewer bills owed the District.
The trial court entered the requested judgment, but in advance of the tax sale the landowners each separately petitioned the trial court objecting to their respective properties being listed for tax sale and asserting that "[a]ll property taxes are paid on this property and the only amount due is an attached sewer lien." Appellant's
All parties agree that the central issue in this case is the interpretation of the last sentence, the lien foreclosure prohibition clause, in Indiana Code section 13-26-14-4. See Appellees' Br. at 2; Appellant's Br. at 1. Section 4 is the last of four brief sections comprising Chapter 14. Section 1 authorizes regional sewer districts to use lien foreclosure to collect rates, charges, and penalties. Ind.Code § 13-26-14-1. Section 2 permits such lien foreclosure actions to recover the rates, charges, penalties, and reasonable attorney's fees and expressly directs a courtordered sale "without relief from valuation or appraisement statutes." Ind.Code § 13-26-14-2. Section 3 states that the lien foreclosures are subject to "the laws concerning municipal public improvement assessments" and the "rights, remedies, procedure, and relief granted the parties to the action." Ind.Code § 13-26-14-3. Section 4, however, limits the availability of lien foreclosure in certain circumstances. In its entirety, Section 4 states:
Ind.Code § 13-26-14-4 (emphasis added).
The District contends that the lien foreclosure prohibition clause in Section 4 does not apply to tax sales, which are legally distinct from foreclosures under Indiana law. The District argues that a regional sewer district has three methods for collecting unpaid sewer bills and penalties
The landowners respond that the plain meaning of "foreclosed" in the last sentence applies broadly to encompass both a traditional real estate foreclosure as well as a tax sale, which they also refer to as a "tax foreclosure." Appellees' Br. at 3. Focusing on the definition given in Black's Law Dictionary and also McCollum v. Uhl, 27 N.E. 152, 154, 128 Ind. 304, 308 (1891), the landowners argue that Indiana has "historically recognized tax sales as a foreclosure process." Appellees' Br. at 3.
The issue is thus whether the lien foreclosure prohibition clause in Section 4 applies to prohibit a tax sale when the sewer bill lien is the only lien on the property. The clause declares: "A lien under this chapter that is the only lien on a property may not be foreclosed." Ind.Code § 13-26-14-4. The parties do not dispute that the landowners' respective delinquent fees and penalties constitute a proper lien under Section 4, but they disagree regarding whether the lien foreclosure prohibition clause applies to tax sales.
The statutory language in controversy, Indiana Code section 13-26-14-4, is part of Title 13, Article 26, which applies to regional sewer districts. The counterpart statutory provisions governing municipal sewer works are found in Title 36, Article 9. We note that the disputed prohibition on lien foreclosure is introduced by the phrase "[a] lien under this chapter [Chapter 14 of Article 26]." Id. We understand this to appropriately identify the prohibition as applying only to the foreclosure of liens by regional sewer districts and not to restrict municipal sewer lien foreclosures. In discussing the liens "under this chapter [Chapter 14 of Article 26]," Section 4 directs that such liens "shall be collected and enforced ... in substantially the same manner" as provided in Sections 31-34 of Title 36, Article 9, Chapter 23, which applies to municipal sewer fee collection.
We are not persuaded by landowners' arguments to the contrary. While Black's Law Dictionary may be useful in some circumstances, its legal definitions do not supersede the general English language chosen by the Indiana General Assembly in crafting our statutes. In addition, we do not find relevant precedential value in this Court's 1891 decision in McCollum. At issue there was whether notice had been satisfied in accordance with a statutory requirement and whether a lien owed to the State for delinquent taxes was superior to a lien for a ditch assessment. 27 N.E. at 153-154, 128 Ind. at 307-08. The passing mention of a "tax foreclosure sale" in McCollum was obiter dicta, not a holding requiring application to the present facts and statutory language. See 27 N.E. at 154, 128 Ind. at 308.
We recognize the landowners' earnest opposition to their property being subject to regional sewer district fees and their belief that the legislature's enactment of the lien foreclosure prohibition clause provided them with immunity in the absence of other liens. We must be guided, however, by the language enacted and thus find that, while it precludes the foreclosure of assessed regional sewer district fee liens when such liens are the only liens on a property, this preclusion does not extend to collection of such fees and charges by tax sale.
The lien foreclosure prohibition of Indiana Code section 13-26-14-4, governing the collection of regional sewer district sewer liens, does not apply to collection by tax sale. Here, because the District employed the tax sale method and did not
RUSH, C.J., RUCKER, DAVID, and MASSA, JJ., concur.