Macon County Collector Rhonda Anno will offer the parcels listed in the accompanying notice at the south front door of the courthouse at 101 E. Washington St. on Monday, Aug. 24, beginning at 10 a.m.
Every year the list draws two kinds of readers: property owners who just found their own name in the paper, and people who see an investment. Both groups tend to misunderstand what is about to happen. Here is how Missouri’s delinquent land tax system, Chapter 140 of the Revised Statutes, actually works.
If your name is on the list
Paying the full delinquent amount before the sale takes the parcel off the block. The figure in the notice is the aggregate of taxes, penalty, interest, and sale costs for all years, plus $60 in advertising and $10.98 for the certified letter the collector was required to send. Call the collector’s office at 660-385-3214 for a current payoff figure and the office’s cutoff for accepting payment.
If the parcel does sell, you are not out of the property that day. On a first or second offering you have an absolute right to redeem for one year after the sale, and a defeasible right to redeem after that until the buyer actually takes a collector’s deed. Redemption means paying the collector the buyer’s purchase money and costs, interest at the rate stated on the certificate, and the buyer’s title search and postage costs.
What a bidder actually buys
At a first or second offering, the winning bidder does not get the property. The bidder gets a certificate of purchase, which is a lien, and a set of duties with deadlines attached.
The most important deadline is the notice requirement in section 140.405. The buyer has to run a title search, then notify the owner of record and everyone holding a publicly recorded deed of trust, mortgage, lien, judgment, or other claim, by both first class mail and certified mail, of their right to redeem. That notice has to go out at least 90 days before the buyer is authorized to take the deed.
The Missouri Supreme Court settled in 2012 what that means in practice. A buyer becomes authorized one year after the sale, so the notices have to be in the mail roughly nine months in, not on the eve of the anniversary. A buyer who misses it does not simply wait longer; under section 140.405.8, failure to comply costs the buyer all interest in the property.
If the certified receipt comes back unsigned and the first class letter comes back undeliverable, there are additional reasonable steps before the sale can stand.
The buyer also has to pay every tax bill that comes due in the meantime, and get the deed executed and recorded within 18 months of the sale. Blow that deadline and the lien dies.
Third offering and later
A parcel that has gone unsold at two consecutive sales moves to a third offering, where the redemption period is 90 days rather than a year. A buyer at a third offering who finds recorded liens has 45 days after the sale to send the redemption notice, and the 90 days runs from the postmark.
A parcel that does not sell at a third offering can be offered again every 30 days. At those later sales there is no redemption period and the collector’s deed issues immediately.
Bidding starts at the delinquent amount and can go higher. Anything paid above the taxes and costs earns no interest at all. A bidder who pays $1,000 in taxes and $9,000 in premium, and who is redeemed a year later, collects $100 in interest on $10,000 tied up for a year.
That excess goes to the county treasurer. Former lienholders have first claim to it by priority, then the former owner. Nothing gets paid out until 90 days after the redemption period expires, and money left unclaimed becomes a permanent county school fund. If you are a former owner and there was a surplus, do not sit on it.
Clean title is a separate project. Section 140.420 says a collector’s deed conveys an absolute estate in fee simple. Title insurers generally do not treat it that way, because notice defects are common and because minors, incapacitated persons, and disabled persons have their own extended redemption rights under section 140.350. Many buyers who intend to sell or borrow against a tax sale parcel end up filing a quiet title suit in circuit court first.
Bidders cannot be delinquent on any other Missouri property tax, and sign an affidavit to that effect. Non-residents of Missouri cannot bid directly; they have to consent to the jurisdiction of the Macon County Circuit Court and appoint a resident of the county as their agent, and the certificate issues in the agent’s name.