Tax Lien Certificates

In this section, we will address the issue of tax lien certificates. With a tax lien certificate, the investor only has a lien on the property and does not have any other rights in, or title to, the property. The investor receives a statutory interest rate until the property tax is received. The property owner has a statutory redemption period within which he or she must pay the tax bill. This period generally ranges from six months to four years. About one-half of the states are lien states.

The states are as follows:

Alabama

Arizona

Colorodo

District of Columbia

Florida

Illinois

Indiana

Iowa

Kentucky

Maryland

Mississippi

Missouri

Montana

Nebraska

New Jersey

North Dakota

Ohio (Ohio is historically a deed state, however, counties with populations over 200,000 are allowed to conduct lien sales.)

Oklahoma

South Carolina

South Dakota

Vermont

West Virginia

Wyoming