Iowa · Law checked October 19, 2026

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

Behind on property taxes in Iowa? 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 Iowa? 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 Iowa deadline

How Iowa sells

The machine, in four lines

Door one: getting the house back (redemption)

Redemption in Iowa runs until the deed is issued — At least 1 year 9 months — the buyer cannot even serve the notice that starts the end of your right until then, and your right expires 90 days after that notice is properly served on you (a faster 9-months-plus-90-days track exists for certain public sales). The served notice, not the calendar, is the real deadline: if you are served, count 90 days from service. Statute-verified

What it costs to redeem: The amount the parcel sold for + the certificate fee + interest at 2% per month (a part-month counts as a full month) + later taxes the buyer paid at the same 2% per month + costs.

Source: Iowa Code §447.9; §447.1

Before any sale: your quieter doors

Payment plans: No state payment-plan right found — county discretion. (The county may also redeem an owner-occupied parcel for a qualifying petitioner under §447.9(3).)

Deferrals (senior / veteran / disability): Not a deferral but a suspension: the tax suspension program (Iowa Code §§427.8–427.12) can suspend taxes for persons unable to contribute to the public revenue.

Door two: the extra money (surplus)

No general owner surplus right found in Iowa law. Iowa's lien sales are bid down on interest, so no overbid surplus arises at the tax sale itself — there is no tax-sale surplus fund to claim from. If a later, separate public sale of the property produces proceeds, Iowa Code §569.7 sends them to the county general fund. Anyone calling you about 'Iowa tax sale surplus' is selling something the system does not create.

Source: Iowa Code ch. 446; ch. 447

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