Tax Lien Information

A tax lien is a lien (or a legal interest) on a given tax parcel issued by a taxing entity. The I.R.S. and state revenue agencies can place tax liens on parcels, but the county treasurer's office (the county entity responsible for collecting property taxes can also place tax liens on parcels. The Alamosa County Treasurer holds a tax lien auction each year (around November) and any tax parcels which have unpaid/delinquent amounts will have tax liens sold against them. A bidder can offer to pay the remaining taxes, plus interest and fees then due on a parcel and in exchange, they will then hold a tax lien on that parcel until the owners pay off, or "redeem" the tax lien. During the time that the tax lien is held by the bidder, the bidder's investment in the parcel accrues interest (which will be reimbursed to the bidder along with all the invested money upon redemption of the tax lien by the owner). This allows Alamosa County to operate and pay its entities the revenues that they are in need and expecting. It also allows investors to earn interest on their investment in Alamosa County.

When the owner of the property pays off or "redeems" the tax lien. They then pay The Alamosa County Treasurer's Office the total due in taxes, interest accrued and fees and the County Treasurer sends you a reimbursement check.

This is the designation we use in Alamosa County to indicate that there is a prior dated tax lien existing on a parcel at the time of a tax lien auction. Should you as a buyer see this, it simply means that an un-redeemed outstanding lien still exists on the parcel you may be bidding on.

All of the parcels that are delinquent as of early October will be published according to state statute three consecutive weeks in The Valley Courier newspaper. You may view these parcels online to decide if there are parcels you may wish to bid on at the auction.

If you wish to retain your interest in the parcel, you have the right, as a senior (or prior dated) lien holder, to redeem, or pay off the tax lien of that other holder. This money is not money which will be refunded to you in the event of an owner redemption! Unfortunately, this is money due to this other tax lien holder and should you chose to redeem it to protect your interest, you are not entitled to have this money refunded to you should the actual owner of the property redeem your lien. If you wish to simply let the treasurer's deed go through, and not protect your interest in the parcel, you would lose out on the money you had put into your own lien and waive any rights to be reimbursed for that lien.

In the event that there is/are senior (older) tax lien(s) on a parcel, you as a junior lien holder do not have to redeem out the senior lien holder to have a treasurer's deed issued. You simply apply for deed and those lien holders will be notified accordingly that you have applied for deed. If they choose not to redeem your lien (to protect their interest in the parcel), then a deed will be issued to you and they will have waived their interest in the parcel.

When you purchase a tax lien, all sales are final. We cannot refund your investment until it is paid back by the owner. Because of this, buying a tax lien is actually a three to four year commitment. Should you decide that you no longer wish to endorse a lien you hold, that is your choice, but we advise against it. This is because we will take the parcel back to tax auction and sell another tax lien on it. This other lien will put you as a senior lien holder - in direct competition for interest in the parcel. Should a second or third lien be sold, you still hold your lien until the owners redeem it, but should you wish to apply for a treasurer’s deed, you would then have other liens to pay off before we could issue a deed to you.

The rate varies from year to year, but it cannot be less than 8% per annum. It is typically 10% to 15% per annum.

The redemption period for owners in Colorado is three years from the date of the sale of the tax lien. The holder of the tax lien can apply with the County Treasurer for a treasurer's deed on the parcel when this redemption period is up. The treasurer's deed process takes 5 to 6 months typically and costs $1000 or more, but should no redemption of taxes take place, the tax lien holder will be issued a treasurer's deed for the parcel - thus making them the owner.

The payment to redeem a tax lien on a parcel must be made in full as we are not insured to hold money like a bank or lending institution. This amount must be paid in full so that we can immediately reimburse the tax lien holder and process the redemption.

For information like this we recommend you contact the Alamosa County Treasurer's Office immediately to obtain a projected redemption figure that reflects current interest owed and all fees.

If you are the senior lien holder you always have the right to redeem out a junior. Note that this redemption money is not going to be refunded to you if the owners redeem your tax lien. You would simply be out this money to protect your lien. After all, the only way that this situation arose is because you neglected to endorse your tax lien in a subsequent year and we sound another lien on it. This does not work the other way around. If you are a junior lien holder you are not entitled to redeem a senior's tax lien. You may, after the three year redemption period is up on your lien (and assuming that the senior has never applied for treasurer's deed them self) apply for deed yourself and give the senior one last shot at redeeming you out. Should they choose not to, then they waive their interest in the parcel.

I got my endorsement list and sent money for the tax lien endorsements, but I waited a little too long to send it and you refunded me some money, saying that some of my endorsements were already paid by another tax lien holder on the same parcel. Is it too late for me to endorse these liens again this year? What does this mean for my interest I am earning?

If another tax lien exists on a parcel you currently hold a tax lien on, we will send an endorsement notice to both lien holders because Alamosa County does not care who endorses taxes, they simply need to collect the tax revenue. In cases like this, we will accept the endorsement payment from whichever lien holder we receive payment from first on a given parcel. Every time you endorse taxes on a tax lien, you are increasing the amount you are earning interest on. So it is important to endorse as soon as we send out notices to you. (This is also why you don't want there to be other tax liens on parcels you currently hold a lien on!)

This endorsement list is only liens which you are eligible to endorse and have not been paid for the current year. The property owners may have actually paid the current years taxes due this year, but not redeemed the tax lien (i.e., the back taxes, interest and fees owed to you from the year of the tax lien). If they have not redeemed the actual tax lien, then you still hold that lien, but you may not have to pay the current year if the owners have paid it already.

A treasurer's deed is a deed issued by the County Treasurer of a given county that states that a buyer of a tax lien has been granted ownership of a parcel they held a tax lien on. The three year redemption period must have expired for the owner and all other requirements under the law must have been fulfilled. At the end of this process, should no tax lien redemption take place, the County Treasurer will conduct a Public Auction. If there are no bidders at the auction, the current buyer will receive a Certificate of Option for a Treasurer's Deed. The buyer then will be deeded the property. 

The entire process takes approximately five to six months. There are statutory obligations that we must meet in order to fulfill "due diligence" and rightfully issue a treasurers deed to you.

In Colorado, you must hold the lien for three years. That is, we cannot issue you a deed until the lien has been held three years from the date of the sale. You can apply for a deed before that three year point, but we cannot issue you a deed until that time. It is our office policy that we send notice to you each year listing what liens are now eligible for deed. We will not send notice for any which became eligible in prior years and you have failed to apply for deeds on. If you hold liens on these older ones, you can still apply for deeds on them, but we will not be sending you "reminders" that you are eligible. Your list will only include those liens which will be three years old in November of that year. It is also our policy not to accept applications for deed unless the lien is already eligible (older than three years) or we are only approximately 5 to 6 months out from the date it becomes eligible. That is, you cannot apply for a deed right after buying the lien.

For real estate parcels, we ask for $1,200 for each parcel to cover all the legal fees, certified mailings, advertisements and current year taxes left unpaid in the process. If any of this money is not used, it will be returned to you with your deed. For mineral rights only parcels and mobile homes, please call our office at 719-589-3626.

We first send a "10 Day Letter" and a "Lien Payoff Statement" amount to the owner of record. They have ten working days to pay the back taxes owed and not incur any additional costs. If there is no redemption, we order an "Ownership and Encumbrance Report" from a title company and this usually comes back to us within a few weeks. We use the information provided in the O&E to send certified mailings (an official "Notice of Sale of Real Estate/Mineral Rights") to individuals and entities of interest in the parcel, giving them one last opportunity to pay off back taxes. We also run three consecutive newspaper advertisements (the "Notice of Sale" above, one per week) as required by law when the value of the parcel is over $500. If the value is under $500, the step is not required.

Please Note: We will not send any correspondence to owners, "warning letters", etc. before a deed application has been received and you have paid fees. It is our office policy that no work will begin until we have received a signed application and fees. This is a legal document and must be filled out and signed correctly. We will provide assistance in filling it out, but we need a signed copy on file. You can request a blank form to photocopy yourself and use in the future applications, but please send an individual signed copy when you apply.

• If we have sent out all official notices, run all required advertisements and waited the necessary amount of time (we schedule the deed date three months and one week from the date of the last publication date) - on that prescribed date, we will record a treasurers deed in your name with the Office of the Clerk and Recorder. At that point, you will be the owner of that parcel through a treasurer's deed.
• Any of the $1,200 fee you paid at the beginning which where not used in the process will be refunded to you at this point as well. In addition to the above costs there are fees for legal forms, recording fees to the Clerk and Recorder, notarization fees and other minor miscellaneous fees that your money is paying for. All expenses will be detailed for you in an expense worksheet included when we send your copy of the deed.

This is one of our office policies because we have found that often, if the owner receives it right away and we provide them with a solid redemption figure (unclouded by other fees and costs), that they will pay it immediately and it prevents many of the complications of refunding your money. This allows us to bring closure to the whole process in a more efficient manner.