Delinquent Property Taxes in Connecticut: Your Town Collector Holds the Deed in a Drawer for Six Months
Reviewed by DocDraft Legal Team · Connecticut · Last updated October 21, 2026
Nobody at a county office is coming for a Connecticut house. Property tax here is a town tax, laid by the municipality on its October 1 grand list and collected by that town or city's own tax collector, and the collector is given a menu of ways to reach the property. Delinquent property taxes are taxes an owner failed to pay by the date the taxing body set, after which interest is added and a sale can be forced to collect them. The route a reader is on decides their deadline. On the auction route the collector sells the real estate itself to the highest bidder, then executes a deed and lodges it with the town clerk, where it shall remain unrecorded six months from the date of such sale (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157(e)). Nothing has passed yet. Inside those six months the property can be bought back by paying the taxes, interest and charges which were due and owing at the time of the sale together with interest on the total purchase price paid by the purchaser at the rate of eighteen per cent per annum from the date of such sale (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157(f)). On the court routes the deadline is different: a judge may limit the time for redemption (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-181), or a summary petition fixes it at the last day of the fourth month after the month the list is filed in court (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-183). Before any of that, the delinquency itself runs at eighteen per cent per annum (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-146). Attorney review is available through DocDraft.
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How long is the redemption period after a Connecticut tax sale?
Six months, counted from the sale itself. Payment must reach the collector not later than six months after the date of the sale, or within sixty days if the property was abandoned or meets other conditions established by ordinance adopted by the legislative body of the municipality (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157(f)).
How much does it cost to buy back a Connecticut property sold for taxes?
Two separate amounts. The taxes, interest and charges which were due and owing at the time of the sale, and on top of that interest on the total purchase price paid by the purchaser at eighteen per cent per annum from the date of the sale, plus municipal debts the sale did not recover (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157(f)).
What interest runs on unpaid Connecticut property taxes before any sale?
Eighteen per cent per annum on the delinquent principal, running from the due date until it is paid, with a two dollar minimum per installment a town may vote not to impose. Every fractional part of a month counts as a whole month, so one day late costs a full month (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-146).
Who do I pay to stop a Connecticut tax sale on my house?
The tax collector of the town or city where the real estate sits. Redemption money is paid to the collector, who then cancels the lodged deed and issues a certificate of satisfaction (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157(f)). Some municipalities title the same statutory officer Collector of Revenue.
Connecticut delinquent property tax rules at a glance
Delinquent property taxes are taxes an owner did not pay by the date the taxing body fixed, after which interest is added and the property can be sold to collect them. Connecticut runs collection at the municipal level and gives the town more than one instrument. The auction under Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157 is extra-judicial and hybrid: real estate is struck off to the highest bidder, but the collector's deed sits with the town clerk unrecorded for six months and is recorded only on a failure to redeem. The lien can instead go to Superior Court as an ordinary foreclosure (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-181) or a summary in rem petition (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-182), or be assigned to a private buyer enforcing it as a lienholder (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-195h). One figure, eighteen per cent a year, governs both the unpaid tax and the redemption, on two different bases.
A Torrington two-family carried to auction, with the deed sitting in the city clerk's office
Picture a two-family on the north side of Torrington whose owner stops paying after the first installment on the 2024 grand list, leaving roughly 7,800 dollars of tax. Interest begins at the due date at eighteen per cent per annum, each part month counted whole (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-146). The city tax collector demands, levies, posts and files the notice nine to twelve weeks out, advertises for three weeks, and mails twice more (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-155, 12-157(a)). At auction a bidder takes it for 71,000 dollars. The collector executes the deed and lodges it with the city clerk, unrecorded (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157(e)). The owner now owes the sale-date arrears plus eighteen per cent a year on 71,000 dollars, not on 7,800. What the collector's ledger shows controls.
Relevant Laws
Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-142 (who sets the due dates, and how many installments)
Provides that the legislative body of each municipality, on approving a budget calling for a property tax, shall determine whether the tax is due in a single installment, in two semiannual installments or in four quarterly installments and shall designate the dates, provided the last installment is due not later than forty-five days before the end of the fiscal year. Installments of a tax due in two or four installments shall be equal, and a taxpayer may pay two or more of them when the first is due.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-145 (the collector's notice, and the mandatory error waiver)
Requires the tax collector of each municipality to advertise and post notice of the time and place for receiving the tax at least five days before it is due, to repeat the advertising within a week after it is due and again at least five days before it becomes delinquent, and to state in the notice that once delinquent the tax carries interest at one and one-half per cent for each month or fraction thereof. Also requires the collector to waive interest where the collector and the assessor jointly determine the delinquency is attributable to an assessor or collector error and the legislative body votes the waiver.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-146 (eighteen per cent a year on the delinquent tax)
Provides that a tax or installment not paid in full on or before the first day of the month next succeeding the month it became due is delinquent and subject to interest from its due date, that the delinquent portion of the principal bears interest at eighteen per cent per annum until paid, subject to a two dollar minimum per installment a municipality may vote not to impose, and that each fractional part of a month counts as a whole month. Interest becomes part of the tax, accrues notwithstanding a judgment, and partial payments are applied to interest before principal.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-155 (demand first, then levy on the real estate)
Requires the collector, where a person fails to pay, to make personal demand, leave written demand at the person's usual place of abode, or mail written demand to the last known residence, unless after reasonable efforts the assessor cannot identify the owner. After demand the collector may levy on goods and chattels and sell them as in the case of executions, or enforce by levy and sale any lien or warrant upon real estate, or levy upon and sell the person's interest in real estate as it exists at the date of the levy.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157 (the auction, the unrecorded deed, the six months, the surplus)
Sets out the whole extra-judicial sale. Subsection (a) fixes the notice package and schedule and makes the posting, filing and mailing the legal levy. Subsection (c) lets the collector sell at public auction to the highest bidder, or to the municipality where there was no bidder or the bid was insufficient. Subsection (e) requires the deed to be executed within two weeks and lodged with the town clerk, where it shall remain unrecorded six months from the date of the sale. Subsection (f) sets the post-sale notice, the six month or sixty day redemption window, and the redemption amount including interest on the total purchase price at eighteen per cent per annum from the date of the sale. Subsection (i) governs the escrow of sale proceeds above the debt, the payment of the balance to the court, and the ninety day window to apply for it.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-140 (the charges the delinquent taxpayer pays)
Provides that all reasonable and necessary costs or expenses for necessary advertising, postage on notices, sums paid town clerks or others for examining records to ascertain encumbrances on the property sold, preparing notices at the collector's direction, drafting collector's deeds, attorney's fees, fees and costs incurred defending any civil action brought as a result of a tax sale or seeking to enjoin it, the services of auctioneers and clerks retained to assist at the sale, filings in the land records and fees paid to government agencies shall be paid by the delinquent taxpayer or as provided in section 12-157.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-159 and 12-159b (what the deed proves, and the year to attack it)
Section 12-159 makes a collector's deed prima facie evidence of valid title in the grantee, encumbered only by municipal taxes not yet due and payable when notice of levy was first made, appurtenant easements and similar interests, and other interests described in the deed, and bars most challenges unless the person shows the collector failed to give the notice required by section 12-157 and that they did not in fact know of the sale within six months after it was made. Section 12-159b bars any action alleging the invalidity of a collector's deed, on any grounds other than fraud, except within one year from the date the deed was recorded.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-172 (when the municipal tax lien exists, and its precedence)
Provides that the interest of each person in each item of real estate legally set in the assessment list is subject to a lien for that part of the taxes laid on the valuation of that interest, as increased by interest, fees and charges, that the lien exists from the first day of October or other assessment date of the municipality in the year previous to the year the tax or first installment became due until two years after that date, that during its existence it takes precedence of all transfers and encumbrances affecting the interest, and that no sale for taxes or foreclosure divests the estate sold of any existing lien for other taxes.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-174 and 12-175 (deferred collection, and continuing the lien)
Section 12-174 lets an owner, part owner or fiduciary file an affidavit with the collector showing in detail unusual financial or other circumstances justifying deferring collection, within ninety days of the first installment becoming due and thirty days for later installments, for referral to the municipality's governing body for authority to continue the lien for up to fifteen years, and provides that a tax whose lien is continued under the section is not subject to interest under section 12-146. Section 12-175 lets the collector continue any tax lien by filing a certificate with the town clerk not later than two years after the tax became due, and invalidates a lien recorded more than fifteen years from the due date unless a foreclosure action was commenced and a lis pendens filed.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-181 (foreclosure of tax liens in Superior Court)
Lets the tax collector of any municipality bring suit for the foreclosure of tax liens in the name of the municipality that laid the tax, lets all municipalities holding liens on the same parcel join in one complaint with the largest unpaid tax determining jurisdiction, lets omitted municipalities be cited in or petition to be made a party plaintiff, and provides that the court may limit the time for redemption, order the sale of the real estate, determine the relative undivided interests of municipalities in real estate obtained by absolute foreclosure, or pass such other decree as it judges to be equitable.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-182, 12-183, 12-187 and 12-189 (the summary in rem route and its clock)
Section 12-182 lets the collector bring an action in the nature of an action in rem to foreclose tax liens on real estate whose fair market value is, in the collector's judgment, less than the total due on the liens and other encumbrances and not more than one hundred thousand dollars for any one parcel, with no personal judgment available. Section 12-183 sets the petition form and fixes the last day for redemption as the last day of the fourth month after the month in which the list is filed in court. Section 12-187 lets an owner or interest holder file a bona fide defense, verified under oath, at least three months before that day, which if accepted has the parcel marked Withdrawn. Section 12-189 sets the right of redemption, the vesting of title on a failure to redeem, and the certificate of redemption the collector signs in triplicate.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-193 (court costs and fees taxed against the owner in a foreclosure)
Provides that court costs, reasonable appraiser's fees and reasonable attorney's fees incurred by a municipality as a result of a foreclosure action brought under section 12-181 or 12-182 and directly related to it shall be taxed against any person having title to the property foreclosed and may be collected once the action has been brought. Also requires a municipality to reimburse a taxpayer for state marshal fees or the costs of property seized where the court finds those costs were incurred because of an assessor or collector error and not through any action or failure of the taxpayer.
Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-195h (assignment of the municipal tax lien to a private buyer)
Lets a municipality, by resolution of its legislative body, assign for consideration any and all liens filed by the tax collector to secure unpaid real property taxes, gives the assignee the municipality's precedence, interest accrual and collection fees and the same enforcement rights as any private lienholder including foreclosure and suit on the debt, and requires a written contract that names correspondence addresses, fixes the earliest and latest dates for any suit while barring any foreclosure before a year has elapsed since the purchase of the lien, caps and discloses attorney's fee structures, makes the property owner a third-party beneficiary entitled to enforce the contract, bars reassignment without consent, and requires litigation and criminal history disclosure. As amended, the assignee is treated as a consumer collection agency and may not charge the owner post-charge-off collection fees.
City of Torrington tax sale bidder information package and rules of sale
A Connecticut municipal tax collector document showing how the statutory auction is run in practice, including that the sale is a public auction of tax delinquent real property conducted by the city tax collector as authorized by Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157, that the deed prepared for the successful bidder will remain unrecorded for six months from the date of the sale and be lodged with the city clerk, that during the redemption period the property remains the original owner's property and the bidder has no rights to it, and that redemption is made by paying the taxes, interest, costs and fees due on the date of sale plus eighteen per cent interest per annum on the successful bid.
Town of Bloomfield delinquent tax enforcement schedule
A municipal tax collector page illustrating that the decision to put a parcel to tax sale is set by local enforcement policy rather than by a statewide waiting period. It states that properties with a total outstanding balance exceeding ten thousand dollars are subject to tax sale and must be at least one year delinquent if the balance exceeds that figure, and that a property is considered for tax sale if it has been delinquent for three or more years. Thresholds differ from town to town, so an owner should ask their own collector.
Regional Variances
Connecticut delinquent property tax rules at a glance
Sale mechanism
Hybrid redeemable deed on the auction route, with court routes alongside it. The collector may sell the real estate at public auction to the highest bidder, or to the municipality where there was no bidder or the bid was insufficient (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157(c)). No certificate is sold. The deed is executed within two weeks and lodged with the town clerk unrecorded, and is recorded and has full effect only if the purchase money and interest are not paid within the redemption period (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157(e), 12-157(f)). The same lien may instead be foreclosed in Superior Court (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-181), foreclosed summarily in rem (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-182), or assigned to a private buyer who enforces it as a private lienholder (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-195h).
Delinquency dates
Set by the town, not the state. The municipality's legislative body chooses one, two semiannual or four quarterly installments and designates the dates, with the last due not later than forty-five days before the fiscal year ends (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-142). The statewide rule is the grace month: a tax or installment unpaid on or before the first day of the month next succeeding the month it became due is delinquent, and interest then runs from the original due date (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-146). A final day falling on a Saturday, Sunday or legal holiday moves to the next business day (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-169).
Interest before any sale
Eighteen per cent per annum on the delinquent portion of the principal, from the due date until paid, with a minimum charge of two dollars per installment that a municipality may by vote elect not to impose, and every fractional part of a month counted as a whole month (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-146). The collector's statutory notice states the same rate monthly, as one and one-half per cent for each month or fraction thereof (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-145). Interest becomes part of the tax and keeps running after a judgment.
Time before sale
No statutory number of years of delinquency is required. What the statute requires is a demand (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-155) and then a notice runway, with the posting, town clerk filing and certified mailing done not more than twelve and not less than nine weeks before the sale, which is itself the legal levy (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157(a)). The real outer limit is the lien, which lasts two years from the due date unless continued by certificate and fails after fifteen years without a foreclosure action (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-172, 12-175). Which parcels go to sale is municipal policy and varies by town.
Redemption period and clock
Six months, running from the date of the sale, which is the same period the collector's deed stays unrecorded with the town clerk (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157(e), 12-157(f)). The window is sixty days instead where the property was abandoned or meets other conditions established by ordinance adopted by the legislative body of the municipality, so the shorter clock turns on a local ordinance. The court routes carry their own deadlines: a judge may limit the time for redemption (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-181), and a summary petition fixes the last day at the last day of the fourth month after the month the list is filed in court (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-183).
Redeemer's charge
A simple annual rate on an unusual base. Eighteen per cent per annum on the total purchase price paid by the purchaser, from the date of the sale, not on the tax debt (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157(f)). It is not a monthly penalty, not a flat penalty, not a bid-down rate set at auction, not a capped bid premium, and no statutory minimum return is guaranteed to the purchaser. Where bidding runs well above the arrears, this figure is far larger than interest on the tax would have been, which is the argument for redeeming early.
Other redemption costs
The taxes, interest and charges which were due and owing at the time of the sale, plus any taxes and debts owed to the municipality that the sale did not recover, plus any additional charges under Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-140, which include advertising, postage, record searches for encumbrances, preparing notices, drafting the collector's deed, attorney's fees, auctioneers and clerks, land record filings and the municipality's costs of defending any civil action about the sale. A receiver's expenses above rents collected during the redemption period are added too (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157(g)).
Notice to the owner
Demand before the levy (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-155), then a notice posted at the collector's office, filed and recorded in the land records as constructive notice equivalent to a lis pendens, and sent certified mail return receipt requested to the taxpayer and every choate encumbrancer, all nine to twelve weeks before the sale, plus newspaper publication once a week for three weeks and two further certified mailings (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157(a)). Within sixty days after the sale the collector must publish and mail notice of the sale date, the purchaser, the amount paid and the date the redemption period will expire (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157(f)).
Where to redeem
The tax collector of the town or city where the real estate is situated. Property tax here is municipal, so there is no county office to pay: the redeemer pays to the collector, who provides a certificate of satisfaction, has the town clerk return the lodged deed for cancellation, and must notify the purchaser by certified mail within ten days and tender the money (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157(f), 12-145). On the summary route the same officer signs the certificate of redemption in triplicate (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-189). Some municipalities title the office Collector of Revenue.
Surplus proceeds
Claimable on the auction route, through the court. A sale realizing more than all delinquent taxes, interest, penalties, fees and costs must have the excess held in a separate interest-bearing escrow account, with the interest earned belonging to the municipality (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-157(i)). Unredeemed, the escrow may first be applied to the taxpayer's other municipal debts, and the balance goes to the clerk of the Superior Court within ten days of the redemption period expiring, with ninety days from that payment to apply to the court for return of the proceeds, failing which the money escheats to the state.
Payment plan
No statewide statutory installment plan exists for taxes already delinquent. The statutory route is deferred collection: an affidavit filed with the collector showing in detail unusual financial or other circumstances justifying deferring collection, within ninety days of the first installment becoming due, referred with the collector's recommendations to the municipality's governing body for authority to continue the lien up to fifteen years, and a tax so continued is not subject to interest under Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-146 (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-174). Installment structure for the current tax is a local choice (Conn. Gen. Stat. 12-142), and pre-sale payment arrangements are town policy.
Frequently Asked Questions
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