The Five-Year Clock
1The clock, start to finish
| When | What happens |
|---|---|
| June 30 | Unpaid taxes become "defaulted." A one-time $15 redemption fee is added. |
| July 1 | Penalties start: 1.5% per month on the defaulted amount. That's 18% a year, every year, on top of each new year's taxes. |
| Year 5 | The county gains the legal "Power to Sell" your property at its tax sale. Exception worth knowing: if a nuisance abatement lien from a code case is recorded on the property, five years can become three. |
| 45–120 days before the sale | The county must send notice by certified mail. That's the only warning the law requires, and the law says the sale goes forward even if you never receive the letter. |
| The sale | Each county sets its own calendar: Sacramento sells online in February with a follow-up in May or June, Placer sells in person in Auburn in October (sealed bids first, the auction a week later), San Joaquin sells online in the spring. They sell the property itself, by deed. This is not a lien certificate you can quietly buy back later. |
2The four ways off the clock
1. Pay it off ("redeem").
You keep the right to pay in full up to the close of business on the last business day before the sale. Escrow companies do this at closings all the time.
2. The payment plan the county doesn't advertise.
State law gives every county the same five-year installment plan: 20% of the defaulted amount down (plus a small one-time processing fee), then at least 20% each year, plus the penalties that keep accruing on the unpaid part. Two deadlines matter and both are strict:
- You can only open the plan up to 5:00 p.m. on the last business day of June in the final year before the property becomes subject to sale, which is earlier than the redemption deadline.
- The plan breaks if any year's payment (or that year's current taxes) isn't in by April 10. If it breaks, penalties recalculate as if the plan never existed, and a new plan can't start until after the next July 1.
Call your county tax collector to open one: Sacramento (916) 874-6622, Placer (530) 889-4120, San Joaquin (209) 468-2133. San Joaquin opens plans by phone or in person only, never online.
3. Penalty relief for hardship.
State law lets every county cancel penalties in limited cases (Sacramento calls its form the "Application for Tax Penalty Relief"; Placer and San Joaquin have their own, ask by phone): circumstances genuinely beyond your control, like a hospitalization or a death in the family right at the deadline. Reviewed case by case, applies to specific penalties rather than the whole bill, and costs nothing to apply.
4. Sell before the sale.
This is the one most owners don't realize is still open. You own the property until the moment a tax deed is issued at the sale. A recorded "Notice of Power to Sell" clouds the title, but it does not stop you from selling. The back taxes and penalties simply get paid out of your sale money at closing, handled by escrow, and whatever your house is worth above the tax debt is yours. At the county's auction, that timing works very differently.
- Not receiving the certified letter does not stop anything.
- The payment-plan deadline comes before the redemption deadline.
- A code-case nuisance lien can shrink your five years to three.
The honest math
The payment plan and penalty relief both assume the underlying money exists somewhere. If it doesn't, the clock doesn't care, and every month adds 1.5%. The one move that converts the house's value into your money, instead of the auction's, is selling before the last business day before the sale.
That's what we do. America's Quick Home Buyers buys houses as-is across Sacramento, Placer and San Joaquin counties, back taxes and all. The taxes get paid at closing out of the sale, you never write the county a check, and we can move on your timeline: a written offer within 24 hours, closing in as little as 7 days when the calendar is tight. And if this sheet helps you open the payment plan and keep the house, that's a good ending too.
Want to know exactly where the clock stands on your property? Reply to the text or email we sent you, or call or text (916) 249-7701, and we'll pull it together.