Connecticut · Law checked October 19, 2026

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

Behind on property taxes in Connecticut? 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 Connecticut? 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 Connecticut deadline

How Connecticut sells

The machine, in four lines

Door one: getting the house back (redemption)

Your window: 6 months after the sale (60 days if the property was abandoned or meets conditions in a town ordinance), counted from the sale date. Statute-verified

What it costs to redeem: Taxes, interest and charges due at the sale + interest on the full purchase price at 18% per year from the sale date + any other municipal taxes and charges the sale did not cover.

Source: Conn. Gen. Stat. §12-157(f)

Before any sale: your quieter doors

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

Deferrals (senior / veteran / disability): Local options only: towns may defer taxes for 65+/disabled homeowners (§12-129n, town-set income limits) and may abate tax above 8% of an occupant's income (§12-124a), repayable with 6% interest on death or sale.

Door two: the extra money (surplus)

Who holds the money: the Clerk of Court for the judicial district (the collector pays it there first).

Your claim window: 90 days from the date the tax collector pays the sale money over to the court. You file an application with the court for return of the proceeds; the collector must notify you of the right within 5 days of paying the court. Statute-verified

If nobody claims it: The statute text read sets no escheat period; before paying the court, the collector applies the excess to your other delinquent municipal taxes and charges first.

Source: Conn. Gen. Stat. §12-157(i)

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 Municipal (town/city) tax collector'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