Tax sale overages and excess proceeds — FAQ

New county tax sale results and overage lists, emailed to you on Fridays by 7 pm Mountain time, often earlier. Never fewer than 50 new county lists a month, since 2011. You also get our searchable historical archive with no monthly download limit, and every file we send you or you buy stays in your account. Skip the records requests and stay focused on finding people.

Each list is one county’s tax sale results, delivered in our standardized Excel list format. It shows the property (parcel or case number and address), the minimum bid, the sale price and the overage. When possible, we trim it to the overages over $10,000.

Names and mailing addresses appear only when the county included them.

$39.95 a month, or $399.50 a year (12 months for the price of 10). No sign-up fee, and the lists and downloads are the same either way. Cancel anytime.

Yes. You pay for the month or year in advance. Sign in, go to your account and choose Cancel; lists keep coming until the end of that paid month or year, and you can still sign in afterward. Questions about refunds are covered in our Terms.

Yes. Click Get a free list, enter your email, and we’ll email you a real county list from one of our recent weekly lists.

We request results from counties across the country, so the states change from week to week with county sale calendars. Open the map and pick a state to see the files we have for it.

Every Friday, by 7 pm Mountain time and often earlier (some weeks we wait for West Coast results). Never fewer than 50 new county lists a month, since 2011.

Yes, no membership needed. This week’s lists are $9.95 each and older files are $4.95. After checkout we email you the file. Members download them all at no extra cost.

When a county sells a property for unpaid taxes and the winning bid is more than what was owed, the extra money is the overage. It’s also called excess proceeds, surplus funds or excess funds, and it usually belongs to the former owner, who has to claim it.

A tax deed sale sells the property itself, and bids above what’s owed become overages for the former owner. A tax lien sale sells the tax debt, so there’s usually no overage to claim yet. That’s why we don’t post lien sale results as a rule, only from states where there’s a reason: surplus tracking sheets that show which deeds were filed, deeds filed automatically after the sale, or county-by-county rules.

Many members find the former owners and help them claim their money, often for a fee. Each state sets its own rules on who can claim and what fees are allowed, so check your state’s law first. We only collect the data. We don’t work claims or compete with members, and we don’t carry claim forms; the county has its current forms.

Yes. Reading real results from many counties each week is a fast way to learn, and you can skip the records requests and stay focused on finding people. Cancel anytime.

Straight from the counties and taxing jurisdictions, never third-party sources, so you don’t waste time chasing bad information. The lists aren’t skip-traced; members do their own skip tracing. Want names and addresses checked for you? See enhanced lists.

Coming soon. Enhanced lists are our gold-standard, ready-made lists, offered separately from membership. Each item has a higher minimum overage, usually $20,000 or more, and the list includes:

• verified owner, taxpayer or recipient names
• property addresses, plus mailing addresses when they differ
• case and parcel numbers
• overages verified as still outstanding on the day the list is released

A note in parentheses, like “(excess proceeds)”, means the file is the county’s separate overage ledger: money from earlier sales still held for owners. It isn’t the sale file. Counties usually haven’t added their newest sale to the ledger yet, so the latest sale file still matters.

Sign in (top right) and open My account. Your files are in the Weekly Subscriber List Groups section: every file we email you, and every file you download or buy, is saved there. Members can also click Download on any file on the map’s state pages or This week’s lists. There’s no monthly download limit. Files are for your own use; please don’t share or redistribute them.