Both candidates for an Athens state House had tax problems in their pasts.

Court documents show that state Rep. Keith Heard, D-Athens, owed a total of $2,196.26 in property taxes on two Massey Lane properties in 2005 and 2006. Athens First Bank & Trust also took out a lien for $2.7 million Heard owed the bank in 2004. It was not clear whether the liens have been cleared up.

Heard said Tuesday morning he was waiting for more information about the liens before commenting on them. "I don't have any tax liens against me, any at all," he said. "... If I've misspoken, I'll be the first to say I did."

Heard released a statement on the liens Tuesday night: "I don’t have any outstanding federal state or local tax liabilities. Tax fifa's on 104 and 124 Massey Lane were not issued until after I sold those properties. As a business owner, I have always strived to pay my debts as they come due. The 2004 consent judgment arose out of a failed real estate venture that involved several partners and myself. I was victimized by partners who mismanaged the assets. To resolve the matter I voluntarily entered into a consent judgment with the creditor. The great majority of the original debt has been satisfied. Unfortunately, anyone who has been in business knows that litigation comes up often in a business context."

Meanwhile, blogger Brett Johns of Georgia Progress unearthed another 35 liens against Heard for unpaid property taxes and trash pickup bills in Atlanta in 2004 and 2005, in addition to a property tax lien in Dekalb County. (Update: Heard says he sold those properties Jan. 4, 2005, and the taxes became the new owner's responsibility.) He also owed the state $43,000 in income taxes from 2000 to 2003, according to court records. They all appeared to be paid off.

An Atlanta Journal-Constitution investigation into legislators' and candidates' taxes turned up two past liens for Spencer Frye, Heard's opponent in the Democratic primary. He owed $8,672.30 in property taxes from 1997 to 2000 and in 2010. The taxes have since been paid. "That was a clerical error," Frye said. "As soon as I found out about it, I cleared it up."

Heard supporter Teresa Smith accused Frye of ethical lapses in a letter scheduled to be published in Wednesday's Flagpole, including "the conflict of interest investigation of his activities at Habitat. Also, under Frye's leadership Habitat was required to revise reimbursement requests to the ACC Unified Government and HUD because it claimed hours not actually worked by Habitat staff."

Flagpole removed the paragraph because the allegations could not be verified by press time. They're unfounded, Keith McNeely, director of the Athens-Clarke Human and Economic Development Department, said Tuesday.

HED investigated an accusation in 2010, when Frye was running for mayor, that he steered a former business partner toward buying land near property owned by Athens Area Habitat for Humanity, where Frye is executive director, on the expectation that it would rise in value. The investigation turned up no wrongdoing.

The timecards are also a non-issue, McNeely said. Nonprofits that receive federal funds often make minor paperwork errors that are later corrected, he said.

"It doesn't suggest in any way that Habitat or any other agency did anything inappropriate," he said.