Vermont · Law checked October 19, 2026

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

Behind on property taxes in Vermont? 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 Vermont? 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 Vermont deadline

How Vermont sells

The machine, in four lines

Door one: getting the house back (redemption)

Your window: 1 year from the day of the sale, counted from the sale date. Statute-verified

What it costs to redeem: The amount the land was sold for + interest at 1% per month from the sale date + the collector's fees and the costs of deed and recording. The purchaser must account for rents and profits received during the redemption year.

Source: 32 V.S.A. §5260

Before any sale: your quieter doors

Payment plans: Yes — payment arrangements with the collector or an abatement application to the board of civil authority (32 V.S.A. §1530) — discretionary avenues, not deadlines.

Deferrals (senior / veteran / disability): None found at the state level. (The current-use program (ch. 124) reduces value for enrolled farm/forest land; it is not a deferral.)

Door two: the extra money (surplus)

No general owner surplus right found in Vermont law. No settled owner surplus right was verified: Vermont's tax-sale chapter contains no distribution statute, the sale is often of only so much of the land as pays the tax, and commentary flags the distribution of any excess as unresolved in Vermont law. If your property sold for far more than the tax, do not assume — and do not sign with a finder either. Ask the town attorney and, if the money is real, a Vermont real estate lawyer.

Source: 32 V.S.A. ch. 133 (no surplus provision found)

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 Collector of delinquent taxes (town)'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