Tax deed sale percentage buy down in Utah

[Stewart VanValkenburg]

I'm interested in bidding at a tax sale in Utah county. We are a tax deed state. The county recently changed the bidding process from a typical bid up auction to a percentage bid down auction. How they do it is they start the bidding at 100% of the property for the cost of the back taxes. To compete you bid smaller percentages like 95%, 90% ownership ect. The remaining percentage of the ownership is the original owner. Having two owners on the property is messy and complicated but I've researched what to do there. My question is do the liens on the property that normally disappear in a tax deed sale still disappear if the original owner retains some percentage of the property?

[William Hochstedler]

Where are you getting this information?

http://www.co.utah.ut.us/taxsale/terms.html

http://www.co.utah.ut.us/taxsale/index.html

Everything looks the same to me.  

Most of parcels that go to tax sale are garbage.  Gap rows, unbuildable vacant land, etc.  Anything that has actual value gets bid up well beyond the taxes owed.  Overages already go to other liens and back to the owner.  Most counties make provisions giving adjacent owners first option on unbuildable parcels.  The reason I mention all of this is because if the property is basically useless junk--which most of these are--there is no reason that someone would by it at 8 cents on the dollar instead of 11 (only to get a problem title at that).

I think your source is suspect or you're not understanding something.  By the way, you should be talking to the auditor or treasurer.  If you are being referred to an attorney, ask them what section of code has changed that an attorney can interpret.

As far as Weber county, I haven't seen much in the last few years.  There have been a few buildable lots (barely) that went for $5000-12000.   Not a terrific deal, but definitely below market.

One guy bid up a property to $36K.  It had a house on Google Earth, but had burnt to the ground a few years back and was now a bunch of weeds.  What's worse is that it lost its grandfathering and was below the minimum lot size, so there was a chance that he wouldn't even be able to build on it again.  Expensive garden.  

Finally, make sure you understand that title insurance underwriters don't like these.  You either have to hold them for a matter of years or quiet tile to get title insurance.  This means you can't sell them easily.

Hope that helps.