Colorado · Law checked October 19, 2026

Colorado tax sale: your deadline, your office, your money

Behind on property taxes in Colorado? Your house can be sold at a tax sale — here's how much time you have to stop it. Your house was sold at a tax sale in Colorado? The extra money from the sale may be yours to claim — and there's a deadline. Both answers are on this page, from the statute.

Count my Colorado deadline

How Colorado sells

The machine, in four lines

Door one: getting the house back (redemption)

Your window: 3 years from the lien sale — redemption may be made any time before a treasurer's deed is executed, counted from the tax lien sale date. Statute-verified

What it costs to redeem: The taxes, interest and costs the lien sold for + redemption interest (set yearly at 9 points above the Federal Reserve discount rate) + later taxes the buyer paid. Note: any premium (overbid) paid at the lien sale is NOT part of what you repay — and is not returned to the buyer either.

Source: C.R.S. §39-12-103; §39-11-120

Before any sale: your quieter doors

Payment plans: No state payment-plan right found — arrangements are county discretion.

Deferrals (senior / veteran / disability): Yes — the homestead deferral (C.R.S. §39-3.5-102): owners 65+ and certain others (including owners called to military service) may defer; the state pays and takes a lien, repaid on sale or death events.

Door two: the extra money (surplus)

Who holds the money: the County treasurer (escrow).

Your claim window: 6 months from the treasurer's-deed public auction. The overbid is paid first to junior lienholders who filed a notice of intent to redeem; the rest belongs to the former owner. The treasurer must mail the owner notice within 30 days after the auction. Statute-verified

If nobody claims it: Overbids not claimed within 6 months become unclaimed property under Colorado's Revised Uniform Unclaimed Property Act and go to the state administrator.

Finder-fee protection: Stronger than a cap: an agreement to pay anyone to recover or help recover the overbid is unenforceable, and inducing such an agreement is a class 2 misdemeanor (C.R.S. §39-11.5-109).

Source: C.R.S. §39-11.5-109 (HB 24-1056)

The county figure rule. This page gives you the law — the window, the formula, the office. The exact payoff or surplus figure lives in the County treasurer's books and changes as interest runs. Ask that office for the figure, in writing, and keep the letter.

Included in the $49 TaxSaleDecoded Kit

  • The surplus claim pack: how to prove the house was yours (deed records, address history, ID), the claim-form path in your state, and what to do when the county says it has no record of your money
  • The redemption playbook: your state's window and cost formula worked step by step, who to pay, how to prove you paid, and the traps in the payoff figure (added fees and interest)
  • The heirs page: the house was a parent's — what changes, which papers prove you are an heir, and the point where it stops being simple
  • The scam shield: how surplus-recovery companies work, the fee caps your state sets for them, and the assignment papers you should never sign
  • The lookback module: what Tyler won, what Pung limited (the extra money is the sale price minus the debt — not your home's value), and the dated state lookbacks, including Illinois claims that die in July 2028

Get the TaxSaleDecoded Kit — $49

One payment of $49. No subscription. The kit is a web page you can return to and print — the claim pack, the redemption playbook, the heirs page, and the scam shield.

All 50 states · The surplus, explained · Redemption, explained