Sell a House With a Tax Lien in Pompano Beach, FL

Who actually holds the tax lien on your Pompano Beach house? The answer changes what the lien can do. If it came through the Broward County Tax Collector, an investor bought a tax certificate on the parcel after the taxes went unpaid, and that investor holds an interest-bearing lien but does not own the house. If it came from the IRS or the Florida Department of Revenue, a notice of lien was recorded in the county's official records at the Governmental Center in Fort Lauderdale, and it attaches to everything you own, the house included. Both show up in a title search. Neither stops a sale.

Pompano Beach Cash Buyers buys houses carrying either kind of lien, from a Kendall Green ranch with three years of certificates on it to an Old Pompano cottage where an IRS notice surfaced in the search. The title company identifies each lien, requests the payoff or the release, and pays it at closing from the purchase price. Your net is the price minus any mortgage payoff minus the liens. We pay the customary closing costs and charge no commission. This page explains what each lien holder can and cannot do, what redemption costs under Florida law, and how the closing clears the title.

A tax certificate is sold by the Broward County Tax Collector on or before June 1 on any parcel whose taxes went delinquent April 1. The buyer is the bidder who accepts the lowest interest rate, bid down from 18%. What that buyer owns is the right to be repaid with interest. The holder does not own the house, cannot enter it, and cannot evict you. The holder also cannot apply for a tax deed until two years have passed from April 1 of the year the certificate was issued.

You keep the title, the possession and the right to sell. A sale to Pompano Beach Cash Buyers is yours to make without the holder's permission. The certificate simply appears in the title search as a lien to be paid.

Redeeming a certificate means paying the Tax Collector the face amount plus interest at the rate the holder bid. Florida law adds a floor: under Fla. Stat. 197.472 redemption carries a mandatory minimum charge of 5%, even when the certificate was bid at a lower rate. Every year the taxes stay unpaid, another certificate is sold on the same parcel, so a house in Collier City or Sanders Park that fell behind three years ago may carry three certificates, each with its own interest.

The title company pulls the exact redemption figure from the Tax Collector at 115 S Andrews Ave, Room A100, and pays it from the purchase price at closing. Nothing is due from you in advance. The certificates are cancelled when the payment posts.

A notice of federal tax lien attaches to all of your property from the date it is recorded in the Broward County official records. To close, the lien has to be addressed in one of two ways. If the equity covers the tax debt, the IRS is paid from the proceeds at closing and issues a release. If the equity covers only part of it, the title company applies for a certificate of discharge, which releases this one property from the lien in return for the IRS receiving the net proceeds. The remaining debt stays with you, not with the house.

The IRS works on its own schedule, and the discharge application should start the day a contract is signed. We set the closing date around it rather than promising a date the agency has not agreed to.

If there is a mortgage on the house, the lender has usually been told about the certificate, because the Tax Collector notifies lienholders. Many lenders pay the delinquent taxes to protect their own lien and add the amount to the loan balance. That stops the tax deed clock but moves the debt into your payoff.

Houses with no mortgage are where certificates pile up quietly: an inherited home in Pompano Beach Highlands where the bills stopped with the owner, a Palm Aire condo whose owner moved into John Knox Village. If the owner has died, the estate usually needs an order or letters from the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit's probate division before the deed can transfer. We can contract while that is pending and redeem the certificates at the closing that follows.

A financed buyer's lender wants every lien resolved before it funds, and on its own timetable. An IRS discharge that arrives after the rate lock expires ends a retail sale, and in a Pompano Beach market with about seven months of supply, a relisting means another two to three months of showings. A cash purchase has no lender clock. We sign, the title company does the lien work, and we close when the releases are in hand.

We also buy as-is. A house whose owner has been fighting a tax problem has usually deferred something else too: a roof on a 1974-era block home, an air handler, a yard that drew a code notice. All of it is priced once, in the written offer, and none of it has to be fixed before closing.

Gather what you have: the Tax Collector's delinquency notices, any letter from the IRS or the Department of Revenue showing the lien amount and the recording information, and any other collection mail. You can check your parcel on the Broward County Tax Collector's site to see which certificates are outstanding. Then send us the address.

We see the house within a day or two and deliver a written offer within 24 hours of the visit. On acceptance the title company starts the lien search immediately so that payoff requests, redemption figures and any discharge application are in motion before the closing date is set. You see every lien on the settlement statement before you sign, and the proceeds are wired to you at closing.

We buy houses in Pompano Beach for any reason, any condition, or any challenge

Every link below is a page written for that situation in Pompano Beach and Broward County.