Free checker

Count your deadline. The county already knows it — now you do too.

Behind on property taxes? 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? The extra money from the sale may be yours to claim — and there's a deadline. Both clocks run from dates on letters the county sent. Enter yours below.

No upload. No account. Nothing filed. Pick your state and your situation; the checker counts your deadline from your date, names the office that holds your money, and gives you your first moves. Nothing you enter leaves this page.

In a few states (Texas is the big one) your deadline is much longer for a main home. Answer honestly — the clock depends on it.

How to read the result. The checker gives you the state rule, the deadline counted from your date, the cost formula, and the office. It never gives you a county's dollar figure — payoff amounts and surplus balances live in the county's books, change as interest runs, and anyone quoting you an exact figure from a website is guessing. Get figures from the named office, in writing.

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.

If the date has passed

A passed deadline is not always the end

Read the result before you give up. Unclaimed surplus often moves — to a state unclaimed-property fund, where the claim is still free and usually has no deadline — instead of vanishing. Redemption that has closed still leaves the surplus claim. And a few states run dated second chances (Illinois' Surplus Equity Fund, for deeds recorded in 2024–2026, accepts claims until July 2028). The checker routes you to the live door, not the dead one.

See your state's full page · Read the step-by-step guides