Louisiana · Law checked October 19, 2026

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

Behind on property taxes in Louisiana? 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 Louisiana? 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 Louisiana deadline

How Louisiana sells

The machine, in four lines

Door one: getting the house back (redemption)

Your window: 3 years from the date the tax sale is recorded (18 months for blighted or abandoned property), counted from the date the tax sale is recorded. Statute-verified

What it costs to redeem: The price paid at the sale + costs + a 5% penalty + interest at 1% per month until you redeem + later taxes the buyer paid.

Source: La. Const. art. VII, §25(B); La. R.S. 47:2241–2243

Before any sale: your quieter doors

Payment plans: No state payment-plan right found — collector discretion.

Deferrals (senior / veteran / disability): None found. (The homestead exemption reduces the tax; it does not defer it.)

Door two: the extra money (surplus)

Who holds the money: the Sheriff / registry of the court.

Your claim window: Only for sales under the NEW lien-foreclosure system (from January 1, 2026): surplus from the sheriff's sale is deposited in the court registry and must be claimed within 18 months of the seizure and sale. Pre-2026 tax sales produced no overbid surplus — the old law sold the smallest percentage of the property that would pay the tax. Being double-checked

If nobody claims it: Under the new-law summary read, surplus unclaimed after 18 months is disbursed to the foreclosing lien purchaser — verify against the enacted text with the court before relying on this.

Source: La. R.S. tit. 47, tax lien auction subpart (Act 774 of 2024, eff. Jan. 1, 2026)

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 Tax collector (parish sheriff / municipal 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