Land · Indiana tax sale guide

St. Joseph County tax sales, Indiana

Verified

St. Joseph County ran a single day opening in 2026, beginning at 9:00 AM, which is an earlier start than the 10:00 AM start used in most Indiana advertisements in this set. Its advertisement carries the two sale warning that a parcel offered at both a treasurer sale under IC 6-1.1-24-5 and a county executive sale under IC 6-1.1-24-6.1 on two or more occasions without a bid may become subject to an ordinance under IC 6-1.1-25-4.9. Unverified flags: the advertisement text read does not publish a registration window, a deposit amount, or a local payment deadline, so each of those facts is unverified in this record.

Selling office: St. Joseph County Treasurer

Next sale: 2026 tax sale, September 1, 2026, completed. The 2026 sale already ran. The county advertisement states the sale begins at 9:00 AM local time on September 1, 2026, online at www.zeusauction.com, with the public auction conducted as an electronic sale under IC 6-1.1-24-2(b)(10), and it is dated July 23, 2026. It states the redemption period for certificates sold in the tax sale expires September 2, 2027. No later dated sale is published in the sources read.

As of November 9, 2026, the 2026 St. Joseph County tax sale, September 1, 2026, is complete. The advertisement read does not publish a total parcel count in the text available here, so no count is given in this record.

Dates and deadlines

Sources: St. Joseph County, 2026 Tax Sale Advertisement. Indiana Code IC 6-1.1-24, iga.in.gov. Indiana Code IC 6-1.1-25, iga.in.gov. Confirm with the selling office before relying on any date on this page: sales move, terms change, and parcels are pulled up to sale day.

Research St. Joseph County parcels before you bid

A sale list gives you the parcels, 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 St. Joseph County, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.

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How Indiana tax lien sales work

• Unpaid taxes become a lien, and the treasurer certifies the list. A parcel becomes eligible when taxes or special assessments from the prior year spring installment or before are delinquent. Under IC 6-1.1-24-1 the county treasurer certifies the delinquent list to the county auditor on or after January 1 of the sale year and not later than fifty one days after the first tax payment due date in that year, and the auditor and treasurer then apply for a court judgment and order for sale.
• The treasurer sells, and the auditor keeps the record. Under IC 6-1.1-24-5(e) the county treasurer sells the parcel at public auction to the highest bidder, subject to the right of redemption, and under IC 6-1.1-24-5(g) the county auditor serves as clerk of the sale. The treasurer may run the sale by electronic means under IC 6-1.1-24-5(i), and most counties in this set sell online in the fall through SRI Incorporated on ZeusAuction. Marion County is the exception in this set: it sells on GovEase.
• Bidding opens at the minimum bid, and the overbid leaves the deal. The minimum bid under IC 6-1.1-24-5(e) is the delinquent taxes and special assessments, the taxes and assessments due in the year of sale, penalties, sale costs, and any unpaid costs from a prior sale. The purchaser pays the full bid immediately to the treasurer under IC 6-1.1-24-7; the minimum bid portion is applied to the taxes and costs, and anything paid above it goes to the tax sale surplus fund.
• Redemption pays fixed percentages, not a bid rate. Under IC 6-1.1-25-2 the redeemer pays 110 percent of the minimum bid if the parcel is redeemed within six months of the sale, or 115 percent if it is redeemed after six months and within the year, plus the overbid itself with interest at 5 percent per year, plus later taxes the purchaser paid with interest at 5 percent per year, plus the notice and title costs the statute allows. Nothing in Indiana is bid down or bid up: the percentages are the same in every county.
• Some parcels sell with no redemption at all, and unsold certificates go to the commissioners. A parcel on the county vacant and abandoned list under IC 6-1.1-24-1.5 has no right of redemption after its sale. For an ordinary parcel the deed is earned on deadlines: the notice under IC 6-1.1-25-4.5 within six months, and the petition for a tax deed under IC 6-1.1-25-4.6 within three months after the redemption year expires. Parcels nobody bids on pass to the county executive under IC 6-1.1-24-6 and are offered again at a commissioners certificate sale under IC 6-1.1-24-6.1, at a price below the original minimum bid, with a redemption period of only 120 days.

How bidding works in St. Joseph County

Register through www.zeusauction.com for the St. Joseph County auction specifically, completing IRS Form W-9 and agreeing to the registration statement described at IC 6-1.1-24-5.3(c) through the auction web site. A business entity must provide a certificate of existence or foreign registration statement to the county treasurer under IC 6-1.1-24-5.1. The advertisement text read does not publish the dates of the registration period for the 2026 sale, so that window is unverified in this record.

• The percentages are fixed, so the overbid sets your real rate. Redemption can pay no more than 115 percent of the minimum bid, and everything above the minimum earns 5 percent. A parcel won at twice its minimum bid returns close to 5 percent overall even if the owner redeems on the best possible day. The disciplined Indiana bid stays at or near the minimum and lets other bidders own the expensive parcels.
• The certificate dies on missed deadlines. The notice under IC 6-1.1-25-4.5 is due within six months of the sale and the deed petition within three months after the redemption year ends. Indiana pays the bidder who runs a calendar, and quietly confiscates the position of the bidder who does not.

Terms: what a bid actually costs

Unsold parcels: the commissioners certificate sale

For certificates struck to the county, the advertisement states that the period of redemption may expire December 31, 2026, which reflects the one hundred twenty day county lien period in IC 6-1.1-25-4(b). Under IC 6-1.1-24-6.1 the board of commissioners may by resolution sell those certificates for a price less than the IC 6-1.1-24-5 minimum sale price plus the costs of that sale, and a purchaser of such a certificate faces a one hundred twenty day redemption period from the sale of the certificate under IC 6-1.1-25-4(c), with the redemption amount set by IC 6-1.1-24-6.1(b)(4). No dated 2026 commissioners certificate sale is published in the sources read.

Before you bid

• Read the parcel's list status before its rate. A parcel on the vacant and abandoned list sells with no right of redemption at all, which makes it a different purchase from the identical parcel one line up the list. The list a parcel was sold from is part of its price.
• Assume the 2026 sale already ran. Indiana's season is September and October for most counties in this set, and every dated 2026 sale here was complete when these pages were checked. Treat this set as the verified 2026 record and the 2027 working map, and confirm the new season's dates with the treasurer.
• Model the overbid at 5 percent, not at the headline percentages. The 110 and 115 percent figures apply to the minimum bid only. Run the redemption case with your full bid in the denominator before deciding what a parcel is worth to you.
• Set the maximum before the sale opens. The free Max-Bid Calculator below works backwards from your exit value to the highest bid you can pay, with the costs shown.

Every Indiana county in this set

One page per county, each verified against its own county source. Indiana has 92 counties; this set is the top 20 by population and sale volume.

• Marion County tax sales
• Lake County tax sales
• Allen County tax sales
• Hamilton County tax sales
• St. Joseph County (this page)
• Elkhart County tax sales
• Porter County tax sales
• Vanderburgh County tax sales
• Tippecanoe County tax sales
• Hendricks County tax sales
• Johnson County tax sales
• Monroe County tax sales
• Madison County tax sales
• Clark County tax sales
• LaPorte County tax sales
• Delaware County tax sales
• Vigo County tax sales
• Howard County tax sales
• Bartholomew County tax sales
• Floyd County tax sales

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. The same desk runs Florida tax deed sales, Texas tax sales, Pennsylvania tax sales, Georgia tax sales, North Carolina tax foreclosure sales, Ohio tax foreclosure sales, Illinois tax lien sales, Michigan tax foreclosure sales, Arizona tax lien sales, California tax defaulted property sales, Colorado tax lien sales, South Carolina tax sales, Indiana tax lien sales and Tennessee delinquent tax sales, and the proven New York season, with the live membership, sits in the NY tax sale hub.