Watching two CT tax sales this month, Bethel Aug 5 and Stafford Aug 11, and they're a good reminder that the winning bid is the easy part. What kills people is what survives the deed.

CT municipal tax sales run under CGS 12-157. Sale extinguishes most junior encumbrances after the six-month redemption runs, but not all of them. A federal tax lien doesn't just vanish, the IRS holds a 120-day redemption right of its own, and if you didn't check for one before you bid, that's your problem now. Municipal charges that aren't part of the tax being foreclosed, sewer and water assessments, certain blight liens, can ride through too depending on how they attached.

I read these the way I read loan files for fifteen years underwriting. Pull the land records at the town clerk, not a county index, CT has no counties, and trace every lien back to when it attached and whether the tax sale actually cuts it. Half the "surprises" people hit post-auction were sitting in the record the whole time.

For those of you buying tax deeds in other states, how are you handling IRS lien checks before you bid? Curious whether people are pulling them themselves or paying someone.