Tax delinquent

01How it is defined in LeadCounty

Tax is past due or the parcel is certified delinquent.

02How many are on the list today

03Why it matters

Unpaid tax is public, dated and measured in dollars. It often points to an owner who is short of cash, who inherited the house, or who no longer wants it, and every year unpaid brings a tax sale closer.

04Where it shows up in public records

Kept by the county treasurer or tax collector on the tax roll; many counties also publish a yearly delinquent list.

05How to find tax delinquent in 3 steps

• Step 1, find the record: kept by the county treasurer or tax collector on the tax roll; many counties also publish a yearly delinquent list.
• Step 2, match it to the property: join the record to the parcel by its parcel number and the owner's name and address, so you know which house it belongs to.
• Step 3, add a second reason: stack tax delinquent with another list to see which owners have more than one reason to sell. LeadCounty does steps 1 and 2 for every property each week.

06How we count it

LeadCounty counts tax delinquent from each county's own records and shows the number for every county in the table above, refreshed weekly. A county that does not publish the record shows no count rather than a guess.

07How to use it

• Sort by amount owed and years behind.
• Stack with absentee or inherited for owners least attached to the house.
• Lead with help: many owners do not know how close a tax sale is.

08Best stacks with tax delinquent

One list gives you a reason; two or three lists together give you owners with several reasons at once. The stacks that work best with tax delinquent:

• Tax delinquent + absentee owner: the owner gets the tax bill somewhere else, so the house is less personal to them.
• Tax delinquent + owned 15+ years: 15+ years of ownership usually means paid-down debt and real equity.
• Tax delinquent + high equity: the owner still has equity to protect, so a fair sale works for both sides.