Michigan · Law checked October 19, 2026

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

Behind on property taxes in Michigan? 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 Michigan? 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 Michigan deadline

How Michigan sells

The machine, in four lines

A dated second chance in Michigan: Owners whose property was sold or transferred before July 18, 2020 fall under a transitional rule tied to the Rafaeli case, which Michigan courts later held applies retroactively — that cohort's path runs through litigation, not the Form 5743 claim. If your foreclosure predates 2020 and real money is involved, that is an attorney conversation.

Door one: getting the house back (redemption)

There is no redemption after the sale in Michigan. Michigan has no redemption after tax foreclosure. The last cure is payment in full on or before March 31 of the foreclosure year (in a contested case, within 21 days of the judgment). After that the title vests in the county and paying the tax no longer gets the property back — the money claim below is the remaining right Your protection is everything that happens BEFORE the sale date — the doors below — and, after a sale, the surplus claim. Statute-verified

Source: MCL 211.78g(3); MCL 211.78k

Before any sale: your quieter doors

Payment plans: Yes — foreclosure-avoidance agreements and payment plans, plus hardship withholding of qualifying main homes from the foreclosure petition, administered by the county treasurer (MCL 211.78q; 211.78h(3)(c)).

Deferrals (senior / veteran / disability): Hardship extensions by the treasurer for qualifying principal residences exist under the foreclosure statutes; no separate senior deferral program was pinned.

Door two: the extra money (surplus)

Who holds the money: the County treasurer (foreclosing governmental unit).

Your claim window: A TWO-STEP claim, and both steps are unforgiving: (1) file a notarized notice of intent to claim (Treasury Form 5743) with the county treasurer by JULY 1 immediately after the foreclosure; (2) after the property sells and the treasurer sends the accounting, file a motion in the circuit court foreclosure case between FEBRUARY 1 and MAY 15. The right cannot be sold or signed away — it passes only by inheritance. Statute-verified

If nobody claims it: Miss either step and the balance is distributed under MCL 211.78m (state/county priorities) — it does not wait in unclaimed property.

Finder-fee protection: Michigan goes further than a fee cap: your surplus right is non-transferable except by inheritance (MCL 211.78l(2)), so an assignment a recovery company asks you to sign is worthless on its face.

Source: MCL 211.78t; MCL 211.78m

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 (foreclosing governmental unit)'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