Land · Minnesota tax sale guide

Washington County tax sales, Minnesota

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Washington County sells a small number of parcels at a time, in person at the Government Center in Stillwater. The initial auction is a two part sale. The parcel opens at its most recent estimated market value, sits over the counter for 30 days if it draws no bid, and then returns at a dated minimum bid sale priced at the taxes, assessments, penalties, interest, and costs owed. Anything still unsold joins the county inventory, where the floor becomes the appraised value plus new special assessments. The classic mistakes are expecting a large catalogue sale, missing that the second sale happens only if the first draws no bid, and overlooking that surplus claims apply only to the initial auction, never to later inventory sales.

Selling office: Washington County Tax Forfeited Land, Property Records and Taxpayer Services, Washington County Government Center, 14949 62nd Street North, Stillwater, MN 55082, Phone: 651-430-6175

Next sale: Monday, December 7, 2026 minimum bid auction (scheduled, if needed). The Washington County Tax Forfeited Land page lists the Estimated Market Value Auction, 1st sale, on Friday, November 6, 2026 at 2 p.m. for one Lake Elmo parcel (9240 31st Street N, PIN 15.029.21.33.0018, starting sale price $155,000.00), and the Minimum Bid Auction, 2nd sale, on Monday, December 7, 2026 at 2 p.m. for the same parcel at a starting sale price of $112,107.89, held if the property did not sell at the estimated market value auction. Both are at the Washington County Government Center in Stillwater.

As of November 9, 2026, the next dated Washington County sale is the minimum bid auction on Monday, December 7, 2026 at 2 p.m., held only if the Lake Elmo parcel did not sell on November 6, 2026. A dated 2027 sale is NOT PUBLISHED. The published pattern is an initial public auction within six months of the later of the forfeiture date or the date the property was vacated.

Dates and deadlines

Sources: Washington County, Tax Forfeited Land. Washington County, Tax Forfeited Land Open House notice, Hugo parcel 08.031.21.41.0013. 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 Washington 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 Washington County, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.

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How Minnesota tax-forfeited land sales work

• Minnesota has no investor tax sale at the judgment stage, whatever the summaries imply. Unpaid taxes become delinquent on the first business day in January with a two percent penalty (sections 279.01 and 279.02). The county auditor files the delinquent list with the district court administrator by February 15, the filing itself operates as the complaint, and after published and mailed notice and a 20 day answer window the court enters judgment against each unanswered parcel (sections 279.05, 279.09, 279.15, 279.16 and 279.19). On the second Monday in May the auditor offers each unsatisfied judgment parcel and bids it in for the state at the full delinquent amount. Section 280.001 abolished the public vendue and the auditor certificate, so every parcel is treated as bid in for the state (sections 280.01 and 280.001). The public buying opportunity comes later, after forfeiture, under chapter 282.
• Redemption runs three years for most land, and the five year figure in older summaries is not in the current statute. The owner and other interested persons redeem by paying the amount bid in plus subsequent delinquent taxes, penalties, costs and interest (sections 281.01 and 281.02). The period under section 281.17 is three years from the date of sale to the state. One year applies only to nonhomestead land in a targeted community and to a qualified mixed municipal solid waste disposal facility, and a court may cut the period to five weeks for an abandoned property under section 281.173 or a qualifying vacant property under section 281.174. The class is fixed by the assessment year the judgment rests on, so the same parcel can carry a different clock in a different cycle.
• Forfeiture is a notice event, not a sale, and the certificate is what vests title in the state. When a parcel bid in for the state stands unredeemed 120 days before the period expires, the auditor must give the notice of expiration of the time for redemption by posting, by publication for two successive weeks, by certified mail, and by service on persons in possession of occupied parcels; the time for redemption then expires 60 days after the notice is given and proof is filed, or on the later date stated in the notice form (section 281.23). On expiration the auditor executes and records a certificate that absolute title has vested in the state (section 281.23, subdivision 9), and the title is held by the state in trust for the taxing districts in proportion to their interests (section 281.25). Nothing is sold at this step; the parcel has only changed hands from the owner to the state trust.
• Since 2024, a newly forfeited parcel must be auctioned first, before the county manages it any other way. Section 282.005, enacted after Tyler v. Hennepin County, requires the county to offer the parcel at a public auction to the highest bidder, which may be an online auction, within six months of the certificate of forfeiture or of the date the property is vacated, whichever is later, after at least 30 days of published notice. Before that sale, an interested party may repurchase by paying all delinquent taxes, assessments, penalties, interest and costs (section 282.005, subdivisions 3 and 4). The six month auction duty is the reason Minnesota counties now run rolling, forfeiture-keyed sales rather than one annual sale date: Hennepin County states its estimated market value sale opens about four and a half months after forfeiture, and Dakota and Anoka Counties date their auctions to their forfeiture batches.
• The price has two floors in sequence, and which one applies depends on the day. At the initial auction the auditor publishes both numbers: the initial price, which is the estimated market value from the most recent assessment, and the minimum bid, which section 282.005 defines as the sum of delinquent taxes, special assessments, penalties, interest and costs assigned to the parcel. The property may not be sold for less than the initial price for 30 days; if no buyer will pay the initial price, the price drops to the minimum bid; if no buyer will pay the minimum bid, the state is deemed to have purchased the property through a credit bid (section 282.005, subdivisions 2, 4 and 11). A buyer who bids estimated market value in week one for a parcel nobody else wants has paid a price the statute itself was about to cut.
• Money above the minimum bid is surplus, and it belongs to claimants, not to the county. On a section 282.005 sale, only the minimum bid amount goes to the county forfeited tax sale fund. Proceeds above it are surplus that interested parties, including the former owner, may claim by filing a claim form within six months after the auditor first mails the notice of surplus; competing claims are resolved by deposit in district court, and unclaimed surplus returns to the fund only after the claim period expires (section 282.005, subdivisions 5, 6 and 9). Minerals and mineral interests take a separate track: they are sold to the state for 50 dollars at forfeiture, subject to a claim if their value exceeds the minimum bid (section 282.005, subdivision 8). This claim architecture is the legislature's direct answer to Tyler, where the Supreme Court held that keeping equity above the tax debt was a taking.
• The older chapter 282 track still governs credit bid and pre-2024 inventory, and its floor is appraised value. Parcels the state is deemed to have purchased, and parcels forfeited before the 2024 system took effect, are classified by the county board as conservation or nonconservation land (section 282.01, subdivision 1). Conservation land may not be sold unless it is reclassified, conveyed to a governmental subdivision, released from the trust, or sold under another law. Nonconservation land is appraised by the county board and sold by the county auditor at the county seat to the highest bidder for not less than the appraised value (section 282.01, subdivisions 3, 4 and 7), on a filed list and twice published notice (section 282.02). Terms require a board resolution and carry at least ten percent down with the balance over no more than ten years. The one general authority to sell below appraised value is the city sale procedure in subdivision 7a for land that cannot be improved because of noncompliance with local lot rules.
• The leftover channel is statutory, and it differs by track. After a section 282.005 auction, unsold parcels pass to the minimum bid price and then to the state's credit bid, and counties keep offering them: St. Louis County runs a dated Minimum Bid Auction after each initial auction and sells the remainder over the counter, and Dakota County follows its auction with a published over the counter window. On the section 282.01 track, any parcel remaining after the auction is sold to anyone offering to pay the appraised value, which is the over the counter channel of subdivision 7, and counties publish those lists as standing inventory; Hennepin and Ramsey Counties both sell this way between auctions. Net proceeds of section 282.01 sales are apportioned under section 282.08, after board set asides, forty percent to the county, twenty percent to the town or city and forty percent to the school district.
• No county in this set is given a different system by chapters 279 to 282, but the counties run visibly different sales. Neither Hennepin nor Ramsey County has a county specific public sale rule in the tax chapters; the named provisions sit elsewhere, Anoka County's sealed bid authority in section 383E.16 and Ramsey County's governmental and housing sale authority in section 383A.76, and inside chapter 282 the only named county rule is the St. Louis and Koochiching venue exception in section 282.01, subdivision 4. Practice splits: Dakota and Washington Counties auction in person at the county seat, Hennepin sells through its own inventory site, Ramsey sells on MNBid, Anoka, Stearns, St. Louis, Olmsted and Scott sell on Public Surplus, and Carver County publishes no sale at all. The county's own list and terms for the batch in front of you govern; there is no statewide Minnesota sale day to fall back on.

How buying works in Washington County

NOT PUBLISHED: Washington County does not publish bidder registration rules for its tax-forfeited land auctions on the county tax-forfeited land page or in the open house notice read. The page states only that notices of sales are posted on the county website at least 30 days before a sale and published in the county newspaper, and that auctions are held at the Washington County Government Center.

• The first price is a protected price, not a market signal. For 30 days a section 282.005 parcel cannot sell below estimated market value, by statute. Bidding full estimated market value in the first window buys a parcel at the one price the law guarantees will fall if nobody else wants it. The patient buyer's calendar, not bidding technique, is the edge in this system.
• Price both floors before the auction opens. The initial price and the minimum bid are both published by the auditor for a section 282.005 batch. The spread between them is the negotiation the statute runs with time. Decide in advance which floor the parcel justifies, and let the other floor's window expire if it does not.
• On the old track the floor does not move at all. Section 282.01 inventory sells at not less than the board's appraised value, at auction and then over the counter at the same floor. There is no mechanism to offer less, and a county that cannot sell at appraised value holds the parcel until the board reappraises. Waiting is the only discount on that track.
• County mechanics decide the work, not the statute. Registration, deposits, payment windows and platforms are batch terms: in person bidder numbers in Dakota and Washington Counties, platform accounts and per parcel deposits on Public Surplus in the online counties, the county inventory site in Hennepin County. Read the batch terms for the sale in front of you; the last county's paperwork does not transfer.

Terms: what a bid actually costs

What happens to parcels that do not sell in Washington County

Any parcel that does not receive a bid during the estimated market value auction may be purchased over the counter for 30 days following the auction. If it still does not sell, the dated minimum bid auction follows, at the sum of delinquent taxes, special assessments, penalties, interests, and costs assigned to the property. If property remains unsold after the initial auction, it becomes part of the county inventory and may later be sold at another public auction or offered over the counter, at a minimum bid of the appraised value plus any new special assessments, and it cannot be resold for less than that minimum bid unless reappraised and reoffered. Certain small or unbuildable parcels may instead be sold privately to adjoining landowners, usually through sealed bids to the highest bidder.

Before you bid

• Ask which track the parcel is on before pricing it. A 2026 forfeiture sells under section 282.005 at estimated market value, then minimum bid. A pre-2024 or credit bid parcel sells under section 282.01 at appraised value. The two tracks have different floors, different leftover channels and different proceeds rules, and a county can be running both in the same month, as Dakota County's November 2026 auction did.
• Confirm the parcel survived to the final list. Owners redeem until the section 281.23 notice expires, interested parties repurchase before the auction, and parcels are pulled for classification. St. Louis County updates its lists across the auction window and Scott County's 2026 auction carried two parcels out of a whole county's forfeitures. The final published list is the only list worth funding.
• Read the classification and the conditions. Conservation classification, mineral severance (minerals are sold to the state for 50 dollars at forfeiture under section 282.005), easements and county conditions ride along with these parcels. The auditor sells the state's interest as it stands; condition, access and title work is the buyer's, after the sale as much as before it.
• Set the maximum before the sale opens. The free Max-Bid Calculator below works backwards from your resale price. In Minnesota run it at both floors: once against estimated market value if you intend to bid in the protected window, and once against the minimum bid or appraised value the parcel reaches if the first window fails.

Every Minnesota county in this set

One page per county, each verified against the county auditor's own publications and the current text of Minnesota Statutes chapters 279 to 282. Minnesota has 87 counties; this set is the top 10 by population.

• Hennepin County tax sales
• Ramsey County tax sales
• Dakota County tax sales
• Anoka County tax sales
• Washington County (this page)
• St. Louis County tax sales
• Stearns County tax sales
• Olmsted County tax sales
• Scott County tax sales
• Carver 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, Tennessee delinquent tax sales, Wisconsin tax deed sales, Missouri tax sales, New Jersey tax lien sales, Maryland tax lien sales, West Virginia tax sales, Virginia tax sales, Oklahoma tax resale, Kansas tax foreclosure sales, Arkansas tax-delinquent land sales, Alabama tax sales, Kentucky certificate of delinquency sales, Mississippi tax land sales, Nevada tax deed sales, New Mexico delinquent property tax sales, Iowa tax lien sales, Nebraska tax certificate sales, Minnesota tax-forfeited land sales and Utah final tax sales, and the proven New York season, with the live membership, sits in the NY tax sale hub.