Land · California tax sale guide

California tax defaulted property sales by county

Verified

California sells the property, and only after a long clock. Taxes that stay unpaid for five years (three for the exception classes the code names) make the property subject to the tax collector's power to sell, and the county then auctions it at a Chapter 7 public auction with a minimum price set by statute. The owner can redeem until the close of business on the last business day before the sale; after the sale there is no redemption at all, and the winning bidder receives a tax deed.

This page set covers the top 20 counties by population and sale volume. Each county page carries the selling office, the sale pattern and the next dated sale where the county has published one, the platform, the deposit gate and its funding deadline, the payment terms, and the reoffer channel, verified against the tax collector's sources. Most of these counties now sell online, and the working deadline in a California sale is not the auction day: it is the deposit funding deadline days earlier, which decides who is allowed to bid at all.

Verify before you go: counties can move a date, change terms, cancel a sale, or pull parcels at any time. The official sale list is the final word.

The 20 counties

Each row links to that county's own page: selling office, venue or platform, deposit, payment terms, leftover channel, and sources. Where a county has not posted a dated sale, the row says so instead of projecting a pattern onto it.

How California tax defaulted property sales work

• Default runs on a five year clock. Property taxes that go unpaid become tax defaulted. After five years of default (three years for nonresidential commercial property and the other classes the code names), the property becomes subject to the tax collector's power to sell under Revenue and Taxation Code Section 3691. Until that clock runs, there is nothing to buy: California sells no tax liens.
• The county sets a Chapter 7 auction. With the board of supervisors' approval, the tax collector publishes notice and offers the property at public auction under Chapter 7 of Part 6. The minimum price is set by Section 3698.5(a): not less than the total amount necessary to redeem the property, plus costs. Most of the counties in this set now sell online under the electronic auction provisions (Section 3692.2); the county's own tax sale page names the platform and the terms.
• The owner can stop the sale until the last business day. Redemption stays open until the close of business on the last business day before the sale begins (Section 3707), and a redemption in full ends the power to sell that parcel. Parcels are pulled right up to that deadline, so a list researched a week out is not the list that sells.
• The sale is an auction of the property itself. The highest bidder at or above the minimum wins. Counties gate bidding behind a refundable deposit funded days ahead, and winning bids are due in full on the deadline the county terms set, usually within days of the close. A winner who does not pay forfeits the deposit and the parcel returns to inventory.
• The buyer receives a tax deed, and unsold parcels come back as reoffers. The tax collector issues a tax deed under Section 3712; there is no redemption after the sale. A parcel that draws no bid at the minimum is not finished: under Section 3698.5 the tax collector may offer it again, including at a reduced minimum, and Chapter 8 (Section 3771 and following) routes some properties to public agencies and nonprofits instead. The leftover channel in California is a second, cheaper auction, and it is part of the pricing decision on the first one.

One California fact decides most bids: the minimum price at a first offering is a statutory floor, not a market price, and parcels that draw no bid at it come back as reoffers that can carry a lower minimum. The same parcel is two different buys in two different rounds; decide which round you are pricing before the auction opens.

Research the parcels before you bid

A sale list gives you the parcel, the date, and the opening terms. It does not give you the owner, the value, or the rest of the picture: liens, foreclosure status, and parcel history. PropertyRadar is the data platform for that layer. It carries owner records, assessed and market values, foreclosure and tax data, and property history for parcels across the country, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.

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Get the alert, not just the calendar.

The dates on these pages are the free layer. The Pine membership is the paid layer, proven in New York: members pick their counties, get alerts when a sale is scheduled or a list posts, and receive the full property list with the analysis already done. California counties open from the interest list first, in the order readers join it.

Keep going

Once a deadline puts you in a sale, the Land Investor Due Diligence Toolkit is the checklist and bid worksheet to run on each parcel before you bid.