Moore County has advertised tax liens against Little River Golf Club and other properties of the resort for failing to pay about $220,000 in property taxes.

Liens for unpaid taxes are automatic but must be advertised before any action may be taken for collection. If the tax is not paid within 30 days, the county could file a judgment against the owners and 90 days later move to a sale for the unpaid amount.

Nothing like that will happen, according to Terry Schieber, general manager of Little River. He said that all taxes due will be paid long before.

"It was to have been paid by the first of March, but it will be about two more weeks now," he said in a telephone interview Wednesday, the day the tax lien ad section appeared in The Pilot. "It's about $220,000 due."

The delay is not unusual during the slower season, according to Schieber. He said the resort pays its vendors first.

"We just postponed our taxes," he said. "Other than being put in the paper, the cost is not very much. It will be paid around the 24th, 25th of March."

It would be months more before there would be any risk of loss, and Schieber said he isn't worried about that.

"Basically, things have changed a good bit in the lending world," Schieber said. "It will all be paid by the end of March."

Like other businesses, resorts such as Little River commonly rely on loans as a sort of "floor plan" to pay ongoing expenses that are continuous while income - in the resort business - arrives in spurts.

Little River's lenders keep things going smoothly.

"It would have been great to get it paid by Feb. 28 or March 1 to keep it from going in the papers," he said. "They didn't get it in on time, but we will get it done before the end of March and move on from there."

Big plans Oceanico announced for Little River are still on the horizon, Schieber said. They have only been delayed a year or so. He said that is a good thing. He said it is much better for the resort to have held off on some construction than to be sitting with half-built houses in today's market.

For areas such as Moore County's golf business, the long-range outlook is very positive, he said.

"We aren't doing construction here until the end of this year, the first of next," Schieber said. "We made the decision four or five months ago to put a hold on construction. We are negotiating with people to try to get something going on something like $300,000 homes for military moving into the area. Anything else, we thought best to delay. I mean, we are ready to start building right now."

The first fractional-ownership home has been completed, but construction on the others is, at least for now, on hold.

"I think, in a couple more months, you will see us coming back fairly strong," Schieber said. "There are a couple of things happening right now in the finance world. And this part of the country is better off than most of it. North and South Carolina are not too bad. We still have the same hopes up here, just have to delay things a little bit."

Contact John Chappell at (910) 783-5841 or by e-mail at jchappell@thepilot.com.