Tax Deed Sales In California?
O.K., hopefully someone out there will be able to clarify my understanding of Tax deed sales in California.
My understanding is that if someone has not paid their property taxes for upwards of 5 years, the assessors/tax collectors office has the right to put the property up for sale at public auction.
If property is “sold” at auction, the “winning” bidder receives a Tax Deed to the property.
That person (the winning bidder/buyer) is then the legal owner of the property and any mortgages or other liens against the property are null & void because a government sale take precedence over everything else.
So, if I understand correctly, the property now belongs to the “winning” bidder? That there is no “redemption period” in California
If that is the case, and the previous homeowner is still living there, does that mean that we would have to go through the eviction process?
You are basically right in what your saying and I believe the first answerer is confusing tax deeds sales with tax lien certificates (I’m not knocking them as they were nice enough to take the time to answer). There are differences from state to state as to what remaining debt is transferred to the the new owner. Check out these 2 articles for more info on this.
http://www.governmentauctionsitereviews.com/Tax_Lien_Article.html
http://ezinearticles.com/?Government-Auctions-For-Tax-Lien-and-Tax-Deed-Properties—Houses-For-Under-$2K?&id=1600637
Comment by Kimberly M — December 29, 2009 @ 5:19 am
This is actually not the case in most states (california being one of them I believe)… basically, if you buy the tax deed, what you’re REALLY doing is buying the right to collect on that delinquent tax. So let’s say they owe 5 grand in taxes, you buy the tax note at 2 grand. The homeowner now owes *YOU* 5 grand instead of the state. They have time to pay that. HOwever if they fail to pay within the specified period of time, then the house goes up for sale and whatever they get in the house sale must first pay off the mortgage (and hope like h*ll they are not upside down on their mortgage) and the balance goes to you.
Remember, simply buying someone’s tax collection does NOT somehow magically make the mortgage on the house disappear and suddenly YOU own the property.
If someone owns their house free and clear and they still owe taxes on it, then it’s their fault for not taking an equity line out to pay their taxes.
Comment by Small Business SEO — December 29, 2009 @ 5:32 am