Tax Lien States

Posted by | Tax Liens | Wednesday 18 August 2010 10:53 pm

What you can expect from a tax sale all depends on the state you are attending to. Just remember, counties and states have different processes in doing tax lien sales unlike tax deed sales wherein they are most likely to be the same.

Take Florida, Illinois, and Arizona for example, these states have interest rates that are bid down. Other states, on the other hand, have interest rates that are in constant and their lien prices are bids up. Now a premium is the fee that is bid up from the original amount due, it’s also called as overbid. And again, different states handle these things differently.

There are states that you can actually get an interest from the premium that is paid for tax liens such as Indiana and Alabama. While there are also states that you are not able to receive an interest on the premium like West Virginia. States that somehow don’t pay interest on the premium and don’t give back the premium to its investor include Vermont and Colorado. But there is one state wherein you can bid down its interest rate to zero and then to premium – New Jersey.

There are also states that use a random selection process and even the so-called round robin process to award the tax lien certificates during tax sales. In the first process, the person who conducts the auctions randomly chooses bidders. Oklahoma and Wyoming use this procedure.

The round robin process on the other hand, the auctioneer will offer a parcel according to the list to the next waiting bidder. The problem with this procedure is that you are not able to choose freely which properties you would somehow like to bid on to. So you will really have no idea which properties will be offered to you and the only thing you can do is to either accept the offer or decline it. Some counties in Colorado use this procedure to tax liens on certain amounts.

It is indeed important that if you decide to bid on a certain state or county, make sure to know the procedures so as not to be disappointed and to fully take advantage the great opportunities being offered in tax lien auctions.

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