Idaho · Law checked October 19, 2026

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

Behind on property taxes in Idaho? 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 Idaho? 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 Idaho deadline

How Idaho sells

The machine, in four lines

Door one: getting the house back (redemption)

Redemption in Idaho runs until the deed is issued — 3 years from the date the taxes became delinquent — if the taxes are not redeemed in that period the tax collector must deed the property to the county, and redemption ends. The county's later auction is a second, separate danger date. Statute-verified

What it costs to redeem: Delinquent taxes + a 2% late charge + interest at 12% per year + the costs and fees of the notice and deed process.

Source: Idaho Code §63-1005

Before any sale: your quieter doors

Payment plans: No state payment-plan right found — partial payments are county treasurer discretion.

Deferrals (senior / veteran / disability): Yes — the Idaho Property Tax Deferral Program (State Tax Commission): main-home owners 65+, widows/widowers, blind or disabled owners, former POWs and qualifying veterans, with income at or under $61,674 (2025 figure). The state pays and records a lien.

Door two: the extra money (surplus)

Who holds the money: the Board of County Commissioners / county treasurer.

Your claim window: When the county auctions tax-deeded property: the board must notify parties in interest within 30 days after the sale, and claims must be made within 60 days of receiving that notice. After lien-priority payments, the remainder goes to whoever owned the property when the tax deed issued. Statute-verified

If nobody claims it: If the record owner cannot be located, the remaining excess sits in an interest-bearing trust for 3 years, then goes to the county indigent fund (or to the State Treasurer under the unclaimed-property law).

Source: Idaho Code §31-808

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 tax collector (deed to county); Board of County Commissioners (auction)'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