Behind on Property Taxes in Tampa? We buy Tampa houses for cash.

If you're behind on Florida property taxes, the clock isn't your imagination. A tax certificate has already been sold or will be sold this June, and a tax deed application can land at the clerk's office two years later. We pay the lien at closing — you keep what's left.

• 15+ years buying Florida houses, 500+ closings statewide
• BBB A+ accredited, 4.9 stars from 87+ Google reviews
• We pay all certificates, interest, and county fees out of the purchase price
• Cash close in 7–14 days at any Florida title company
• Family-owned. You talk to Byron, not a call center.

Why Sell to Byron When You're Behind on Taxes

• We pay the certificate at closing. You write zero checks to the county. Title pulls a payoff, we wire it, and the lien releases on the same day the deed records.
• We've handled stacked liens. Multiple years of certificates, IRS liens, state liens, HOA estoppels, code-enforcement fines — we've closed deals with all of them on the same property. It's not our first one.
• No repairs, no inspection contingency. A house that's behind on taxes is usually behind on a few other things too. We don't care. We buy as-is.
• No realtor commissions or closing costs to you. A 6% commission on a $300,000 house is $18,000 you don't have. We don't charge it.
• Speed matters when the clerk has a calendar. Once a tax deed application files, you're on a 30-day track to a public auction. We can close inside that window.
• You stay in the driver's seat until you sign. Free offer, no obligation, no high-pressure sales call. If the numbers don't work for you, walk away.

How It Works When Taxes Are Behind

1. Call or text 951-331-3844 (or fill the form). We ask for the address, how many years behind, and whether a tax deed application has been filed yet.
2. Title pulls payoffs. Our title company gets the exact certificate balances, interest, and any TDA fees from the county within 24–48 hours.
3. You get a written cash offer with the lien payoffs already netted out, so you see your actual walk-away number, not a fantasy gross.
4. We close in 7–14 days at a Florida title company. Wire hits your account the same day. Certificates release. You're done.

Situations We Buy in Florida

• Tax certificate already sold but no TDA yet — the redemption clock is still cheap
• Tax deed application filed and auction scheduled — call today, not tomorrow
• Multiple years of stacked certificates with different holders
• Tax lien plus active foreclosure from your mortgage lender — foreclosure overlap
• Tax lien plus city code-enforcement fines at $250/day — code violations
• Inherited house where the back taxes piled up during probate
• Out-of-state owner who can't keep up with FL property tax bills
• Underwater on the mortgage with taxes also behind
• HOA assessment lien stacked on top of the county tax lien
• Vacant land with a tax certificate eating equity year over year

The Florida Tax Deed Timeline — In Plain English

This is the timeline every Florida homeowner with delinquent taxes is sitting on, whether they know it or not. The dates are fixed by Chapter 197, Florida Statutes, and the county tax collector follows them like a railroad schedule.

April 1 — Prior-Year Taxes Become Delinquent

Florida property tax bills go out in November and are due in full by March 31 of the following year. On April 1, any unpaid prior-year taxes are officially delinquent. The tax collector begins charging interest from this day forward — a minimum of 3% the first month, then 1.5% per month after — and you lose all the early-payment discounts (4% in November, 3% in December, 2% in January, 1% in February).

If you paid your 2025 taxes in November 2025, you got a 4% discount. If you wait until April 2026, you're now sitting on a balance with penalty interest and you're 60 days from the auction.

May 1 — County Adds Penalty + Advertising Fees

Through April, the tax collector publishes a list of delinquent properties in a local newspaper of general circulation, and on or before May 1 they tack on the advertising cost plus a statutory 3% minimum penalty on real estate (5% on personal property). Your bill grows again.

This is also when most Florida tax collectors send the certified mail notice — the one with the green return-receipt sticker — telling you that your property is going to certificate auction. If you ignore that letter, you don't stop the process. You just lose the chance to redeem cheap.

June 1 — Tax Certificate Auction (Online)

By June 1 each year (§197.402), the tax collector runs a public auction of certificates on every delinquent property. In Florida, almost all of these are online, on platforms run by RealAuction (Bid4Assets-style infrastructure used by Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Orange, Hillsborough, Duval, and most major counties). Anyone with a registered bidder account can participate.

Here's the part most homeowners don't understand: the auction is reverse-bid on interest rate, not on price. The certificate face amount is set — it's your unpaid taxes plus penalty plus advertising — and bidders compete by bidding down the interest rate they're willing to accept. Bids start at 18% (the statutory cap) and go down to 0.25%. The lowest bidder wins the certificate.

So a winning investor might hold a certificate at 4.75% interest. They paid your back taxes to the county. They now have a lien on your property earning that rate, with a statutory 5% minimum return on certificates over $250 if you redeem early (§197.472).

The certificate does not transfer ownership of your house. It transfers a lien plus the right to apply for a tax deed later. You still own the property. You can still sell it. We can still buy it.

Years 2+ — Certificate Holder Can Apply for Tax Deed (§197.502)

Once a certificate is at least two years old measured from the April 1 of its issuance year, the holder can file a tax deed application (TDA) with the county clerk. This is the moment everything changes.

To file the TDA, the certificate holder has to pay off any other outstanding certificates on your property, plus pay current taxes, plus pay an application fee, plus pay the title-search fee. So a TDA on a property with stacked certificates can cost the applicant $5,000–$15,000 up front. They only do it when they think the property is worth taking through to auction.

If your certificate hits its two-year mark and no one has filed a TDA, you might have years of breathing room. If a TDA is filed, you have weeks.

Tax Deed Application → Public Auction

Once the TDA is filed, the clerk of court — not the tax collector — runs the rest of the show. The clerk schedules a public tax deed auction, gives statutory notice to the owner and any lienholders, and runs another newspaper publication.

The auction is also typically online (RealAuction is dominant in FL for both certificate and deed sales). The opening bid is the total of all certificates, interest, current taxes, application costs, clerk fees, and a statutory minimum bid that, for a homestead property, includes one-half of the assessed value (§197.502(6)). For non-homestead it's just the costs.

Bidders bid the price up. The highest bidder wins. The clerk issues a certificate of title to the winning bidder. At that moment, the previous owner loses the property. No more redemption. No more options. The property is gone.

Florida Redemption Rights — §197.472

Here's the lifeline. Until the moment the tax deed sale actually happens and the certificate of title issues, you can redeem by paying off the certificate plus interest plus costs. Florida law guarantees this right — it cannot be waived, contracted around, or shortened by the certificate holder.

You can redeem:

• Before any TDA is filed (cheap — just the certificate face plus accrued interest plus minor costs)
• After a TDA is filed but before the auction date (more expensive — now includes TDA application costs, clerk fees, title-search fees)
• The day of the auction (most expensive — full statutory payoff plus all advertising costs)

What you cannot do is redeem after the certificate of title issues. There is no post-sale redemption window in Florida. The day before the sale, you still own your house and can pay it off. The day after, the auction buyer owns it and you have no claim — except possibly to surplus funds (§197.582), which we'll cover below.

We Pay the Certificate Off at Closing

This is the simple part. When we buy your house, we don't ask you to pay the lien first. Title pulls the exact payoff from the county, and the wire to redeem the certificate goes out at the same closing where your sale proceeds are wired to you. The certificate releases. The deed records to us. You're out, debt-free, with whatever equity is left in your hand.

In practice: $300,000 house, $7,500 in certificates, $185,000 mortgage, $5,000 closing costs we cover. You walk with roughly $102,500. The county gets paid. The mortgage gets paid. You get the rest.

What About Surplus Funds?

If a tax deed sale actually happens and the property sells for more than the total of liens and costs, the surplus flows under §197.582 — first to junior lienholders in priority order, then to the record owner. This sounds like a free option to let the auction happen. It is not.

Surplus funds are not a winning play for homeowners in 95% of cases. Why? Because the auction sale price is almost always far below market value — investors buy at deep discounts. A house worth $400,000 might sell at tax deed auction for $180,000. After the certificates, mortgage payoffs (which usually do not survive a tax deed sale on a non-homestead, but mortgage lenders often pay the certs to protect their position before it gets there), and other claims, the surplus to the homeowner can be zero. You lose all your equity in exchange for whatever scraps remain.

Selling before the auction — even at a wholesale price to a cash buyer — almost always nets the seller more than waiting for surplus. We've run this math hundreds of times.

HOA Liens and Special Assessment Liens — They Behave Similarly

Florida property tax liens get all the press, but HOA and condo association liens follow a parallel track and can take your house just as fast.

• HOA assessments (§720.3085) — once recorded, become a lien on the lot. The HOA can foreclose on the lien like a mortgage. Florida HOAs do foreclose, especially on vacant non-homestead properties.
• Condo assessments (§718.116) — condo associations have even stronger rights, including joint-and-several liability between the prior and new owners for unpaid dues. Pull an estoppel before closing or the new buyer is on the hook.
• Special assessments — including post-Surfside SIRS structural reserves (§§553.899, 718.112(2)(g)) — can hit a unit owner with a $40,000 surprise that becomes a lien if unpaid. We've bought condos at deep discounts because the seller couldn't pay a $60,000 SIRS assessment.
• CDD bonds — Community Development District bonds in master-planned FL communities (Lakewood Ranch, Babcock Ranch, ChampionsGate) sit as liens that survive ordinary sales and have to be paid off or assumed.

When we run title on your property, we pull every one of these. We pay what needs to be paid at closing. You don't field calls from collection lawyers anymore.

A Real Florida Example

Vacant non-homestead house in Hillsborough County, $215,000 ARV, single mom inherited it from her dad in 2023. She didn't know she was responsible for the property taxes — they were never in her name. By the time she opened the certified-mail TDA notice, here's what she had:

• $4,200 — 2024 certificate (held by an investor at 5.25%)
• $4,800 — 2025 certificate (different investor, 6%)
• $1,950 — current 2026 taxes coming due
• $625 — TDA application + clerk costs
• $0 — no mortgage (free and clear)

Total to redeem the day she called us: roughly $11,575. Auction was scheduled 28 days out.

She did not have $11,575. She also didn't want to lose her dad's house for a $4,000 tax bill she didn't know about. We pulled title in 48 hours, confirmed her as the only heir under §732.103 (intestate, tenants in common — she was the only child), opened summary administration under §735.201, and closed at $148,000 nine business days after first call. She walked with $148,000 minus our small closing costs. The county got paid. The auction was canceled. Her dad's name came off the tax roll.

If she had let the auction run, the highest realistic bid on a vacant inherited house in that ZIP would have been in the $80–$95k range. She would have been left with surplus funds litigation and maybe $60k of net equity after costs and the §197.582 priority chain. She'd also have lost six months waiting on the clerk.

That math runs the same way over and over. Time and certainty almost always beat trying to milk the auction process.

• 15 years of FL closings, including dozens of tax-deed-clock cases. We know which counties move fast (Miami-Dade, Broward, Hillsborough) and which give you breathing room (some Panhandle counties).
• Direct line to Byron, not a call center. When the clerk's auction date is two weeks out, you can't be playing phone tag.
• We close at any Florida title company you trust. No "preferred" closer that benefits us. You pick.
• Transparent walk-away math. The offer letter shows certificate payoffs, mortgage payoff, our purchase price, and your net wire. No mystery deductions at the table.
• We've redeemed certificates the morning of an auction. It can be done. We've done it.

Florida Tax Deed Process — County Variations Worth Knowing

Chapter 197 is statewide, but how each county runs the process varies:

• Miami-Dade County — fast and aggressive on TDA filings; tax deed auctions run weekly online.
• Broward County — similar pace; high investor competition means certificates clear quickly each June.
• Hillsborough (Tampa) — runs a robust online auction calendar; staff is responsive but the clerk's docket fills fast.
• Duval (Jacksonville) — moves a bit slower than South FL; slightly longer real-world windows from TDA to auction.
• Orange (Orlando) — strong investor demand keeps interest rates bid down to 0.25%, meaning your redemption math is friendlier than statutory cap suggests.
• Pinellas, Sarasota, Lee, Collier — all run online tax deed auctions with reasonably similar 30-day notice windows.

If your house is in any Florida county, we can buy it. If you're in Miami, Tampa, or Jacksonville, we have title relationships that close inside seven business days. Other counties take a few extra days for clerk responsiveness.

Will I get any equity if I sell while behind on taxes?

Almost always, yes. As long as your home is worth more than the certificate balance plus your mortgage and other liens, the difference is yours at closing. We pay the certificate, the back interest, and the county fees out of the purchase price — you walk away with what's left, often a five-figure check.

What is a Florida tax certificate?

A tax certificate is a lien the county sells to an investor when you don't pay your property taxes. The investor pays your back taxes to the county, gets a certificate at the June 1 auction, and starts earning interest on that money — up to 18% per year — until you pay them off. The certificate itself does not transfer your house. It just creates the clock that can lead to a tax deed sale.

Can the certificate holder buy my house directly?

No. They cannot knock on your door, hand you cash, and take the deed. They can only force a sale through the county clerk by filing a tax deed application under §197.502 — and even then, the property goes to a public auction, not to them automatically. They have to bid like everyone else.

What is a TDA — tax deed application?

TDA stands for tax deed application. Once a certificate is at least two years past the April 1 of its issuance year, the holder can file a TDA with the clerk. The clerk then schedules a public auction. Filing the TDA is the trigger that puts your house on the courthouse calendar — it's the moment the redemption clock turns into a stopwatch.

What is redemption?

Redemption is your right under §197.472 to pay off the certificate, plus interest and costs, any time before the deed is issued. In plain English: you can stop the process at any point by writing one check to the county. The catch is the check gets bigger every month, and once we're inside the TDA window, county fees and clerk costs pile on fast.

Can I redeem after the auction?

No. Once the clerk's certificate of title issues after the tax deed sale, redemption is over and the property belongs to the auction buyer. There is no post-sale grace period like there is in some other states. The day before the sale, you still own your house. The day after, you don't.

What about IRS liens on the property?

Federal tax liens have a 120-day right of redemption after a tax deed sale (26 U.S.C. §7425). If you have an IRS lien, we work with title to either pay it off, negotiate a partial release, or close around it. We've handled it before. It does not stop the sale.

What about Florida state liens?

State child-support liens, Medicaid recovery liens, and Department of Revenue liens all attach to the property and have to be addressed at closing. We pay them out of the purchase price so title can issue clean. You don't bring money to the table.

What about HOA liens and special assessments?

HOA dues become a lien under §720.3085 and can be foreclosed independently of the county tax process. Condo associations have similar rights under §718.116. Special assessments — like Surfside-driven SIRS structural reserves — work the same way. We handle the estoppel letter and pay the back balance at closing.

I have multiple certificates from different years stacked on my house. Can you still buy it?

Yes. We pull a full title search, list every outstanding certificate by year and holder, and pay them all from the closing proceeds in the order title requires. Multiple certs make the math more complex, not the deal impossible.

What if my mortgage is bigger than what you offer?

If you're underwater, we can sometimes negotiate a short sale with your lender, or we can structure a subject-to deal where we take over the payments. We'll tell you straight up after we run numbers. We don't waste your time.

How fast can you close before my tax deed auction?

Most county clerks set tax deed sales 30 days out from the notice. We close in seven to fourteen days at any Florida title company, which is well inside that window. If your auction is closer than that, call us — we've stopped sales with three days to go.

Will this hurt my credit?

A tax certificate by itself is a property lien — it does not get reported to your personal credit by the county. A mortgage foreclosure or unpaid HOA collections judgment will hit your credit, which is another reason to sell before things stack up. Selling for cash and paying off the lien at closing keeps your credit clean.

Do I owe capital gains tax on the sale?

Florida has no state income tax. Federally, if the home was your primary residence for two of the last five years, the §121 exclusion shelters $250,000 of gain (single) or $500,000 (married). On an inherited property, your basis steps up to date-of-death value, which often wipes out gain entirely. Talk to a CPA, but most distressed sellers owe nothing.

Ready to Stop the Tax Deed Sale on Your Florida House?

Every day the certificate sits, interest accrues. Every day after a TDA files, the clerk's calendar gets one day shorter. Florida tax deed sales are public, fast, and final — but they only happen if you let them.

Call or text Byron at 951-331-3844 right now, or fill out the form on this page with your address and how many years you're behind. We'll pull title, give you a real walk-away number with the lien payoffs already netted out, and close in seven to fourteen days at any Florida title company. No fees to you. No repairs. No realtor commission. The certificate gets paid at closing, the lien releases, and you walk away with your equity intact.

You don't have to lose this house.