BiggerPockets

Hello all, I recently attended my first tax deed auction here in pinellas county fla, and I was wondering if anyone here knows the process as far as obtaining clear title for resell. Thanks in advance.

okay thanks i'll check it out.

Hello Jawsette,

I will try to keep it brief and simple so as to not make it sound any more complicated than it appears. I am not sure what your goal is, but most people tend to want to Buy a Property at a Substantial Discount/Low-Price.

Overview of Florida Delinquent Real Estate Tax Sales:

Florida has 67 Counties; All are required by Statute/Law to conduct the Tax Lien Certificate Sale which is usually held in the month of February. Some sales are conducted at the Courthouse or a Designated Room/Location. Some on the other hand are conducted Online. Finally, you can also acquire Tax Lien Certificates Over the Counter after the initial Tax Lien Certificate Sale.

The Initial Sale in which Tax Lien Certificates are bidded-on have a (2) Year Redemption Period. After the two years Investors may Apply for A Deed to those properties. If so, a Tax Deed Sale is scheduled, which is also a Public Auction, after the appropriate steps have been taken. As such, if you attended this sale, then it was, in fact, a Tax Deed Auction. If successful, you are granted a Deed to the Property which brings me to your question.

"FREE & CLEAR TITLE". You can clear title via "Quiet Title" -- a process that is usually handled by an Attorney-at-Law that is familiar with the process. This clears the way for you to Market the Property for resell. Also, you may want to look into Marketing the Property with a disclaimer such as: "Property Acquired at Tax Deed Sale, Buyer Must Quiet Title."---Only a Suggestion.

Hope this Helps you---Keep Learning and follow-up on some of the suggestions already submitted (here on BiggerPockets) to your response as well.

Much Success to you!

What GD has said is only partially true.

Since you purchased the TLC and must hold it for two years and there is a tax sale every year, then you must also own the TLC that is sold the next year, or pay off those taxes without the guarantee of repayment in order to hold the righty in first position and claim ALL rights to the property.

Otherwise the owner of the other TLC must be paid off at that tax deed sale in order to clear title.

Much of this also depends upon State statutes which give each county an option of which way they conduct the various tax sales that they can conduct.

This is why thing vary not only from State to State, but from County to County within the State.

This is why I indicated to the OP that he should go to the county and ask how they apply the State statues in their county as it can and does vary.

It is not good enough to know the State laws, but also the local county laws.

Then there are properties that make it through the bidding process with no bids on it and therefore are bought by the county. Once held for the redemption period they are then sold by the county (usually through the County Executive office) that would not have a redemperiod at all except for the usual required advertisement period that they have recieved a bid and anyone wanting to outbid that bid has 10 days to respond to that office and a public auction will be held between bidders with the winning bidder getting the free and clear deed immeadiately upon paying the monies bid plus any outstanding taxes owed.

I dont want anyone to get me wrong in this. Instead of saying the GD was only partially right, I should have said that GD was mostly correct.

But there are a couple ways of loosing your money which I want people to avoid. I do believe in the tax sale process as a great way to gain properties or just interest and do not want to deter anyone from looking into them.

Tax Sales - Be very careful...I am a broker, but also have first hand experience - unfortunately or not. First a non-judicial foreclosure, we brought action in Circuit Court for wrongful foreclosure in 2008, beat an unlawful detainer by purchaser at foreclosure, as we filed substantial evidence of wrongful foreclosure. Next the IRS came in and redeemed the property - without notices to us, so we filed an Injunction, next the IRS sold our home to a third party without notice to us (understand we are still in the home); beat an unlawful detainer as again we filed a case against now the IRS and the purchaser at the tax sale. The foreclosure case is actually considered void since the redemption voids the foreclosure and the property reverts back to the taxpayer (us). We are currently in the United States District Court. We had $750,000.00 of equity built up in our home prior to the wrongful foreclosure and then the redemption. We are not going to loose it! We have a quiet title action and claim against the IRS for under U.S.C. Title 26, Section 7433. This has been horrible, but we are still in the home since it all started in September 2008. Any questions or offers of help? Oh, and by the way...seek out the owner before trying to get some sort of deal...you never know when they have been wrongfully foreclosed on or the property was redeemed by the IRS when taxes weren't even owed!
Don't be blind to possible problems with the purchasing of a "good deal". My personal feeling...it will be wonderful when people go out and buy a property for what it is worth - give a few thousand...By the way - a quiet title action takes a long time...

It is all about proving their due process was served.