Georgia tax sale redemption: can I still get the house back?

The bidder at a Georgia tax sale gets a tax deed, but not the final say over the house. The law lets you undo the sale by paying the bidder back with a premium on top. That is called redemption, and to redeem is to buy the house back.

If your worry is a stranger coming to change the locks, this is the part to know. During the first 12 months the bidder can't take the house from you. They can't move in, rent it out, or build on it. If you live there, you can stay while you raise the money.

The owner can redeem. So can anyone with a stake in the house, such as a lender with a loan on it. That can also include a son or daughter who stands to inherit it. If someone other than the owner pays, what they paid becomes a first lien on the house, so work out who owes whom before a relative pays for you.

After a regular sale you get 12 months from the sale date. After that, the right to redeem stays open until the bidder closes it by sending a notice with a final date. Some bidders send it the week the year is up. Others wait years or never send it.

Even with no notice, the window does not stay open forever. A tax deed turns into full ownership four years after it is recorded, notice or no notice. If the sale was a few years back, look up the date the deed was recorded with the clerk of superior court and count from there.

The law calls it a notice of foreclosure of the right to redeem. Lawyers and bidders often call it a barment notice, because it bars you from buying the house back after its date. The form starts with the words Take notice that, and it says the right to redeem will expire on a date it names.

It goes to the owner at the time of the sale and to anyone living in the house. It also goes to anyone with a lien or other recorded stake in it. The timeline above shows when it has to be served and printed.

The price starts with what the bidder paid at the sale, not with the taxes you owed. Then these are added on.

Say a bidder paid $40,000 at a sale in March. If you pay within the first year, you owe $40,000 plus 20 percent, or $48,000, plus any taxes the bidder paid since.

Now say you pay 13 months after the sale. That is the first year plus part of a second year, so the premium is 20 percent plus 10 percent.

The bid is the number to find first. The county's letter about money left over from the sale names the bidder and the price, and the tax office can tell you both.

In a regular sale you pay the bidder, or whoever holds the tax deed now, not the county. Once you pay, the bidder has seven days to sign a quitclaim deed, which hands the house back to you, and must present it for recording within ten days. Keep proof of every payment and every letter.

The house comes back just as it was before the sale, with any loans or liens it already had. Buying it back undoes the tax sale and nothing else.

Some counties, Henry among them, sell through a court case called a judicial in rem sale. The rules there are much shorter. The owner, or heirs who take the owner's place, has 60 days from the sale to pay the full minimum bid into the superior court. The minimum bid is the back taxes with the fees and interest added on.

If you pay in time, the court case is dismissed and the bidder gets a refund. If you don't, Henry says the bidder gets a deed within 90 days of the sale, and no later notice is sent. A court sale is also preceded by a hearing, where anyone with a stake can object. Check which kind of sale your county held on the first day you can.

We can pull the sale price and the date the tax deed was filed, at no charge. Then we lay the ways to raise the money next to each other. If raising it yourself is out of reach, we can buy the house and pay the bidder from the closing, when the timing allows.