PROPERTY TAX ARREARS & FORECLOSURE PREVENTION
Behind on Property Taxes? There Is Still Time.
Unpaid property taxes move on a fixed schedule, and every stage narrows your options before ending in the loss of title. We negotiate arrears, structure installment agreements with county treasurers, and defend owners against forfeiture and tax foreclosure across Michigan, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia.
WHY THIS IS URGENT
Tax Foreclosure Is Not Like Mortgage Foreclosure
Owners who have been through a mortgage default sometimes assume a tax delinquency behaves the same way: that there will be notices, a long negotiation, a lender with an incentive to work something out. Tax foreclosure in Michigan is not that. It runs on statute, it runs on a calendar, and the county does not need your cooperation to complete it. At the end of the process a circuit court enters a judgment, absolute title passes to the foreclosing governmental unit, and the redemption right is gone. There is no reinstatement afterward and no renegotiation.
There is a second trap, and it catches commercial owners specifically. Search for help with delinquent property taxes and you will find payment plans, hardship deferrals, and redemption windows. Read the statutes and most of that turns out to be homestead relief, written for owner-occupants and unavailable to a commercial owner. Michigan's installment statute is limited to principal residences. Pennsylvania's much-advertised nine-month redemption after a sheriff's sale is barred for any property not occupied as a residence. An owner who assumes those protections apply to a commercial building is relying on rights he does not have.
What makes this survivable is that the calendar is long, and that discretion cuts both ways. Where a treasurer is permitted but not required to agree, the outcome turns almost entirely on who is asking and how well the proposal is built. And in a surprising number of cases, part of the balance being chased is itself built on an assessment that overstates what the property is actually worth. The owners who lose properties are rarely the ones with the worst facts. They are the ones who waited.
Delinquent tax balances negotiated with the county treasurer
Installment and payment agreements structured and presented
Forfeiture and foreclosure defense before the redemption window closes
Surplus proceeds recovered after a completed tax foreclosure sale
If you have received a notice of delinquency, a notice of forfeiture, or a foreclosure petition, contact us. The single most useful thing you can do is establish where your parcel actually sits on the timeline, and that takes one conversation.
THE MICHIGAN TIMELINE
How a Delinquency Becomes a Lost Property
Michigan's General Property Tax Act moves an unpaid parcel through three stages over roughly three years. Knowing which stage you are in tells you what leverage you still have. Exact dates vary by tax year and county.
01
Delinquency
Taxes unpaid at the local level are turned over to the county treasurer in the March following the year they were levied. Interest and an administrative fee attach. This is the cheapest and most flexible stage, and the one at which a payment agreement is easiest to obtain.
02
Forfeiture
Roughly one year later, the parcel is forfeited to the county treasurer. You have not lost the property and you can still redeem, but interest escalates sharply and additional fees are added. This is the stage at which most of our work happens, and it is where a credible, well-documented proposal still changes outcomes.
03
Foreclosure
Roughly one year after forfeiture, the county petitions the circuit court. Once judgment enters and the redemption deadline passes (generally March 31), absolute title vests in the foreclosing governmental unit. The property is gone. What may remain is a claim to any surplus from the eventual sale.
STATE-BY-STATE BREAKDOWN
Six States, Six Very Different Clocks
Delinquency is not one process. Some states sell a lien to an investor. Some foreclose in court themselves. Some hand you a generous redemption window; others give a commercial owner none at all. Assuming your state works like the one next door is how owners lose properties. The details below are general, and county practice varies within every one of these states, so treat this as orientation rather than advice on your parcel.
Michigan: The county forecloses in circuit court directly. No lien is sold to an investor. Taxes are returned delinquent on March 1, the parcel is forfeited on March 1 of the following year, and a judgment of foreclosure follows roughly a year after that, with all redemption rights ending on March 31. After that date, title vests absolutely and there is no redemption for any property type. Note the trap: the installment statute (MCL 211.78q) is limited to principal residences, so a commercial owner has no statutory right to a payment plan.
Ohio: Three separate tracks, and they behave nothing alike. A county treasurer may sell a tax lien certificate (in practice the large counties do this through negotiated bulk sales); the county prosecutor may foreclose judicially; or, for unoccupied land only, the Board of Revision may run an expedited foreclosure that can transfer a parcel straight to a land bank with no sale and therefore no surplus. Delinquent tax contracts of up to five years exist under ORC 323.31, but they are guaranteed only to owner-occupants and agricultural owners. For commercial property, the treasurer may agree and is not obliged to.
Indiana: A lien state. The county sells a certificate at an annual tax sale and title passes later by tax deed. Redemption is generally one year from the sale, and about 120 days on a commissioners' sale. But there is a trap here that should worry any owner of an idle building: a parcel placed on the county's vacant and abandoned list has no right of redemption whatsoever, and the sale conveys fee simple to the bidder directly. That statute is not limited to residential property. A dark retail box or an empty warehouse can be lost outright with no redemption window at all. Indiana does, however, offer a genuine workout tool that most states do not: a written payment arrangement with the county treasurer removes the parcel from the sale list entirely, it is available to commercial owners, and the balance must be cleared by roughly July 1 of the following year.
Pennsylvania: Which law applies depends on where the property sits. Most counties run under the Real Estate Tax Sale Law: an upset sale in September, then a judicial sale free and clear if it does not sell. Philadelphia and Allegheny use the Municipal Claims and Tax Liens Act instead. The critical point for a commercial owner is that under the Tax Sale Law there is no redemption once the sale occurs, and under the MCTLA the well-known nine-month redemption is expressly barred for property not occupied as a residence. That remedy is for homeowners. On the other hand, Pennsylvania has the best workout tool of the six: any owner may stay an upset sale by paying 25% down with the balance in up to three installments within a year. Default once and you are barred from another agreement for three years.
Wisconsin: The county takes a tax certificate on September 1 and may not sell it to an investor. Roughly two years later it may foreclose in rem, and on judgment the county takes fee simple absolute with no post-judgment redemption. Whether a county uses the in-rem process at all depends on whether its board has adopted it by ordinance. There is no true installment statute: partial payments are permitted but, by statute, they do not extend the redemption deadline, which is a particularly cruel detail for an owner who thinks he is making progress. Recent legislation now requires counties to sell tax-deeded property and return surplus proceeds to the former owner.
Georgia: A non-judicial tax sale on the first Tuesday of the month. What the purchaser receives is not fee simple but a defeasible title subject to your right of redemption. That right is stronger than most owners realize: it lasts twelve months and then continues indefinitely until the purchaser affirmatively bars it by statutory notice, and any lienholder or mortgagee can exercise it too. Redemption costs the sale price plus a 20% premium in the first year and 10% for each year after. Georgia has no delinquent-tax installment statute at all, and excess funds from a sale are paid out in order of recorded lien priority, so a leveraged property can generate a surplus that the mortgagee consumes entirely.
Statutes change and counties administer them differently. Before you act on anything above, have us confirm what actually applies to your parcel and where it sits on the calendar today.
WHAT WE DO
Where We Can Change the Outcome
Arrears Negotiation
We open a direct line to the county treasurer, establish the true balance owed, and challenge interest, penalties, and fees that have been misapplied or compounded incorrectly.
Installment Agreements
Most payment-plan statutes are homestead relief and do not reach commercial property. Where a treasurer has discretion rather than an obligation, the outcome turns on who is asking. We build the proposal and negotiate the terms.
Forfeiture & Foreclosure Defense
Where a parcel has already been forfeited, we work the redemption window: verifying notice was properly given, identifying procedural defects, and preserving the right to redeem.
Surplus Proceeds Recovery
If a foreclosure sale has already happened, the surplus above what was owed belongs to the former owner, not the county. Claiming it is not automatic and the deadlines are real.
OUR APPROACH
We Look at the Balance Before We Negotiate It
Most people treat an arrears figure as a fact. We treat it as a claim. Before negotiating a number, we test how it was built: whether interest and fees were correctly applied at each stage, whether notice requirements were actually met, and, critically, whether the underlying assessments the tax was calculated from reflect what the property is worth. Nearly twenty years of commercial assessment work means we recognize an inflated taxable value on sight. When part of a delinquency traces back to years of over-assessment, that reframes the entire conversation with the treasurer, and it is a line of argument that almost nobody working these files pursues.
Verify the arrears balance line by line, including interest and fees
Confirm statutory notice was properly given at each stage
Test the underlying assessments for over-valuation
Build a documented, realistic proposal the treasurer can say yes to
Preserve redemption rights while the negotiation runs
An arrears matter and an assessment appeal are usually handled by different people who never speak to each other. Running them together is where the leverage is.
WHY OWNERS CALL US
Michigan-Led, With Representation Across Six States
Michigan's forfeiture and foreclosure sequence is unusual, and the discretion that county treasurers hold makes local knowledge decisive. We do this work most often in Michigan, across Wayne, Oakland, Macomb, and the rest of the state. We also handle arrears matters on request in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia, where the timelines and redemption rights differ and need to be established first. Our team has spent nearly two decades inside the assessment and tax system in these jurisdictions, which is what allows us to argue the balance rather than just pay it.
They are two different stages of the same process, and the distinction matters enormously. Forfeiture is not the loss of your property. When a parcel is forfeited to the county treasurer, you still own it and you can still redeem it by paying what is owed. What changes is the cost: interest and fees escalate substantially at forfeiture, and the clock starts running toward the final stage. Foreclosure is the end of the line. Once a circuit court enters a judgment of foreclosure, absolute title vests in the foreclosing governmental unit and your right to redeem is extinguished. The window between forfeiture and foreclosure is where nearly all of the useful work happens, and it is why calling early matters so much more than calling well-prepared.
Michigan runs on a roughly three-year cycle. Taxes that go unpaid become delinquent and are turned over to the county treasurer in the March following the year they were levied. Approximately one year later the property is forfeited to the treasurer. Approximately one year after that, a circuit court may enter a judgment of foreclosure, and the redemption period generally closes on March 31. That final date is the one that ends the conversation. Specific dates depend on the tax year and the county, and the sequence can be interrupted by payment agreements, hardship provisions, or a successful challenge to the underlying amount. The first thing we do is establish exactly where your parcel sits in that timeline, because it determines every option available to you.
This is the single most misunderstood question in the area, and the honest answer for a commercial owner is much narrower than the internet suggests. Most of the payment-plan and hardship relief you will read about is homestead relief. It is written for owner-occupants and it does not reach commercial property.
In Michigan, the delinquent-tax installment statute (MCL 211.78q) defines eligible property by reference to the principal residence exemption, and the poverty exemption expressly does not apply to the property of a corporation. A commercial owner in Michigan therefore has no statutory right to an installment plan at all. Relief is entirely discretionary with the treasurer. Ohio is closer to the middle: under ORC 323.31, owner-occupants of residential property and owners of agricultural property are guaranteed at least one opportunity to enter a delinquent tax contract, while for commercial property the treasurer simply may contract.
Two states are genuinely better, and neither restricts the remedy to homeowners. In Indiana, a written payment arrangement with the county treasurer (IC 6-1.1-24-1.2) removes the parcel from the tax sale list altogether, and once the treasurer agrees, removal is mandatory. The catch is that the balance must be cleared by roughly July 1 of the year after the agreement is signed, so it is a cure, not a long workout. In Pennsylvania, under 72 P.S. 5860.603, any owner can stay an upset sale by paying 25% down with the balance in no more than three installments within a year, though defaulting once bars you from another agreement for three years. Wisconsin permits partial payments but, by statute, they do not extend the redemption deadline. Georgia has no delinquent-tax installment statute at all.
The practical consequence is the opposite of discouraging. Where the treasurer has discretion rather than an obligation, the outcome turns almost entirely on who is asking and how well. That is precisely the work. And where arrears are substantial, we look at whether part of the balance is itself the product of an inflated assessment, which can change the negotiation entirely.
It can, and it is one of the first things we look for. Arrears matters and assessment appeals are usually treated as separate problems, handled by different people, on different timelines. They are not separate. If a property has been over-assessed for several years, the arrears balance includes tax that was never lawfully owed, and the owner is being pursued for a number that is wrong at its foundation. Running the valuation question in parallel with the arrears negotiation gives you a stronger position on both. It does not always work, because appeal deadlines may have passed for the years in question, but it is a possibility that is very often missed.
Very possibly, and this is the most frequently abandoned money in the entire area. In Rafaeli, LLC v. Oakland County, the Michigan Supreme Court held that a county keeping the surplus above the tax debt is an unconstitutional taking. (Worth noting for commercial owners: Rafaeli was itself an LLC, not a homeowner.) The U.S. Supreme Court reached the same conclusion nationally in Tyler v. Hennepin County in 2023, which is why every state we practice in now has some mechanism for returning surplus.
Recovering it is emphatically not automatic, and the Michigan deadlines are unforgiving. A former owner must file a notice of intention to claim by the July 1 following the foreclosure, and then move in circuit court within a narrow window the following year. Miss the first deadline and the claim is simply gone, no matter how large the surplus was. Other states differ: Indiana allows a claim against the tax sale surplus fund for three years, and Georgia pays excess funds out in order of recorded lien priority, which means a mortgagee can consume the entire surplus before the owner sees anything.
There is also a gap worth knowing about. Where a purchaser takes a deed without any resale, as can happen in Georgia after the redemption right is barred, no surplus is ever generated and the owner's equity simply disappears into the deed. Whether that survives Tyler is an open question. If your property was taken through tax foreclosure, it is worth having someone determine whether a surplus exists and whether a claim can still be made.
Yes, on request. Our arrears and foreclosure-prevention practice is led out of Michigan, where the forfeiture and foreclosure sequence under the General Property Tax Act is distinctive and where we do this work most often. We also represent owners in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia. Delinquency timelines, redemption rights, and the leverage available to a taxpayer differ meaningfully between these states, so the first conversation is always about establishing what the calendar actually looks like where your property sits.
Arrears and foreclosure-prevention work is not on our standard appeal fee schedule. Our published fee structure covers assessment appeals, where a filing retainer plus a contingency share of savings makes sense because the outcome is a measurable reduction. Arrears matters do not work that way. The size of the balance, the stage of the proceeding, the county involved, and whether a valuation challenge runs alongside it all change the scope of the work substantially. We quote engagement terms case by case and discuss them with you before any work begins.
RELATED SERVICES
Other Ways We Help Property Owners
Property Transfer Affidavits & Uncapping Disputes — Fix an erroneous uncapping, forward and retroactively
Commercial Property Tax Appeals — Challenge an over-assessment on its merits
Property Tax Appeal Deadlines — What is due when, in each state
Understanding Your Tax Bill — How the number on the bill is actually built
Michigan Property Tax Appeals — Tax Tribunal representation statewide
Michigan Uncapping — What happens to taxable value when a property sells
EVERY STAGE NARROWS YOUR OPTIONS
Talk to Us Before the Redemption Window Closes
Delinquency, forfeiture, foreclosure. Each stage costs more and leaves you less room than the one before it. If you have received a notice, the most valuable thing you can do today is find out exactly where your parcel sits on that timeline.
Michigan-led, with representation available in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia.
