Alaska · Law checked October 19, 2026

Alaska tax sale: your deadline, your office, your money

Behind on property taxes in Alaska? Your house can be sold at a tax sale — here's how much time you have to stop it. Your house was sold at a tax sale in Alaska? The extra money from the sale may be yours to claim — and there's a deadline. Both answers are on this page, from the statute.

Count my Alaska deadline

How Alaska sells

The machine, in four lines

Door one: getting the house back (redemption)

Your window: At least 1 year after the property is transferred to the municipality in the foreclosure — the municipality must hold it for that redemption year, counted from the foreclosure transfer to the municipality. Being double-checked

What it costs to redeem: The unpaid taxes + penalties + interest + costs, plus taxes and assessments that accrued in the meantime.

Source: Alaska Stat. §29.45.400

Before any sale: your quieter doors

Payment plans: No state payment-plan right found — payment arrangements are up to the municipality.

Deferrals (senior / veteran / disability): A municipality may by local law defer taxes on the first $150,000 of value for a main-home owner who is 65+, a disabled veteran, or a widow(er) 60+. The same classes can exempt that first $150,000 instead (an exemption, not a deferral).

Door two: the extra money (surplus)

Who holds the money: the Municipality (borough/city).

Your claim window: If the municipality later sells the property for more than was owed — and held it less than 10 years and never set it aside for a public purpose — the former owner may claim the excess by written claim within 6 months of that resale. A claim filed after 6 months is barred. Statute-verified

If nobody claims it: After 6 months the claim is barred; no surplus exists at all if the municipality held the land 10+ years or designated it for a public purpose.

Source: Alaska Stat. §29.45.480(b)

The county figure rule. This page gives you the law — the window, the formula, the office. The exact payoff or surplus figure lives in the Municipality / borough (tax foreclosure)'s books and changes as interest runs. Ask that office for the figure, in writing, and keep the letter.

Included in the $49 TaxSaleDecoded Kit

  • The surplus claim pack: how to prove the house was yours (deed records, address history, ID), the claim-form path in your state, and what to do when the county says it has no record of your money
  • The redemption playbook: your state's window and cost formula worked step by step, who to pay, how to prove you paid, and the traps in the payoff figure (added fees and interest)
  • The heirs page: the house was a parent's — what changes, which papers prove you are an heir, and the point where it stops being simple
  • The scam shield: how surplus-recovery companies work, the fee caps your state sets for them, and the assignment papers you should never sign
  • The lookback module: what Tyler won, what Pung limited (the extra money is the sale price minus the debt — not your home's value), and the dated state lookbacks, including Illinois claims that die in July 2028

Get the TaxSaleDecoded Kit — $49

One payment of $49. No subscription. The kit is a web page you can return to and print — the claim pack, the redemption playbook, the heirs page, and the scam shield.

All 50 states · The surplus, explained · Redemption, explained