Land · Colorado tax sale guide

Adams County tax sales, Colorado

Verified

Adams County is the least documented sale in this Colorado set, and this page says so rather than filling the gaps. The Treasurer and Public Trustee's current pages confirm the frame: an annual online tax lien sale to collect delinquent tax monies, a delinquent interest table at 1 percent per month, a treasurer's deed process under the post 2024 public auction model with a $1,250 application fee, and published county held and unredeemed lien lists. But no dated 2026 sale, no registration window, no deposit amount and no winner payment terms were published on the official pages read. Secondary calendars point to an internet sale at adams.coloradotaxsale.com, the address in the Treasurer's own older investor presentation; the current Treasurer pages read do not name the site or the vendor, so the platform is unverified on this page.

Selling office: Adams County Treasurer and Public Trustee

Next sale: No dated 2026 sale published on the official pages read; the Treasurer's stated pattern is an annual online sale closing November 6. The Treasurer's Property Tax Due Dates page describes the annual pattern without attaching a year: the annual online tax lien sale goes live on October 7th and will close November 6th, starting at 9:00AM, the Mobile Home Tax Lien Sale is the last section of the internet sale, and taxes must be paid by 5:00 PM on October 31st to avoid the additional delinquent interest and fees caused by the sale. Because the page names no year, this page does not claim a dated 2026 Adams County sale. The last sale artifacts the Treasurer publishes are the County Held Lien List and the Unredeemed Tax Lien List, both dated November 20, 2025.

The thing to watch in Adams County is the Treasurer and Public Trustee posting a dated sale notice: on the stated pattern the internet sale closes in early November, so a dated 2027 notice would be expected in the fall of 2027, but that is the pattern only, not a published date. The monthly Active Treasurer's Deed List on the Treasurer Division page is the other running publication.

Dates and deadlines

Sources: Adams County Treasurer and Public Trustee, Treasurer Division. Adams County Treasurer and Public Trustee, Property Tax Due Dates. Adams County Treasurer and Public Trustee, Treasurer's Deed. Adams County Treasurer and Public Trustee, County Held Lien List, November 20, 2025. Confirm with the selling office before relying on any date on this page: sales move, terms change, and parcels are pulled up to sale day.

Research Adams County parcels before you bid

A sale list gives you the parcels, the date, and the opening terms. It does not give you the owner, the value, or the rest of the picture: liens, foreclosure status, and parcel history. PropertyRadar is the data platform for that layer. It carries owner records, assessed and market values, foreclosure and tax data, and property history for parcels across Adams County, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.

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How Colorado tax lien sales work

• Unpaid taxes become a lien, and the lien is what sells. Property taxes in Colorado are a lien on the property, and delinquent interest accrues at 1 percent per month under CRS 39-10-104.5. When taxes stay unpaid, the county treasurer publishes the delinquent list once a week for three weeks (39-11-102) and sells the tax lien at the annual sale under Title 39, Article 11. What the buyer receives is a certificate of purchase: a lien position against the property, not the property, not a deed, and no right to enter or use it.
• The sale runs every fall, and the statute sets the outer date. The sale must begin no later than the second Monday in December (39-11-109), and each treasurer fixes the day. Counties in this set sell from late October into December, most of them in November. Most of the large counties sell online through a vendor the treasurer names; some still sell in person, and the county page says which.
• Bidding is a premium, and the premium is spent money. Under 39-11-115(1) the lien goes to the person who pays the taxes, delinquent interest and fees and bids the largest amount on top of that sum. The excess, the premium, is credited to the county general fund. It earns no interest, and it is not returned if the owner redeems. Competition in Colorado raises the price of the lien without raising its return by a cent.
• The rate is fixed by statute, and redemption is the normal exit. The certificate earns the redemption rate in 39-12-103: nine percentage points above the federal discount rate as of September 1, rounded to the nearest whole percent. For the 2026 sale that rate is 13 percent. The owner, or another interested party, may redeem at any time before a treasurer's deed is issued, and the holder may pay later delinquent taxes and endorse them onto the certificate at the same rate. Most certificates end in redemption.
• The deed runs through a public auction now. Colorado used to hand the treasurer's deed to the certificate holder on application after three years. That ended July 1, 2024 under HB 24-1056, and SB 26-144 reenacted the replacement process as Article 11.5 effective June 1, 2026. After August 1 of the third calendar year following the sale, the lawful holder applies, and the treasurer auctions a certificate of option for treasurer's deed: the opening bid covers what is owed to the holder plus treasurer fees and costs, any overbid belongs to the former owner, and if no qualifying bid is made and paid, the lawful holder is deemed the option purchaser and the deed issues to that purchaser. Liens nobody buys are struck off to the county and can later be bought by assignment.

How bidding works in Adams County

A 2026 registration window was not published on the Treasurer's pages read. A secondary auction calendar reports online registration from October 19 to October 30, 2026; it is unverified. Confirm the window with the Treasurer and Public Trustee's office at 720.523.6160 before relying on it.

• The premium is the price, and it buys nothing. Every dollar of premium goes to the county general fund the moment the lien sells. A small lien won with a large premium can pay back less than the taxes were worth even at a 13 percent headline rate, because the rate applies only to the certificate amount. Model premium as a fee you pay for the right to earn 13 percent on somebody else's tax bill, because that is what it is.
• The certificate is not the property. No possession, no rents, no right to enter, and no deed on application. Since 2024 the deed runs through a public auction where the owner's equity is bid for openly; buyers who need the property itself on a schedule should be reading the deed state pages, not this one.

Terms: what a bid actually costs

Unsold liens: county held certificates

Liens that draw no bid are struck off to the county, and Adams County publishes the result: the County Held Lien List posted by the Treasurer, dated November 20, 2025, lists each county held lien by account, tax year and balance, alongside a separate Unredeemed Tax Lien List of the same date. County held certificates are later available by assignment on county terms under the Colorado frame, but the Treasurer's pages read did not publish the assignment price or terms as of November 9, 2026.

Before you bid

• Model the premium before the rate. Run the redemption case with your real premium included: certificate amount, plus premium, against 13 percent on the certificate amount alone over the likely redemption window. Liens that only work at a zero premium do not work.
• Check whether the sale is already over. Colorado's season is short and most of it lands in a few November weeks. Several sales in this set had already closed before these pages were checked. The treasurer's sale page is the live word on dates, registration, and deposits.
• Subsequent taxes are part of the position. A holder can pay later delinquent taxes on the parcel and endorse them onto the certificate at the same rate. Budget for carrying the position across the three year deed window, not just for buying it.
• Set the maximum before the sale opens. The free Max-Bid Calculator below works backwards from your exit value to the highest certificate amount you can carry, with the premium and costs shown.

Every Colorado county in this set

One page per county, each verified against its own treasurer source. Colorado has 64 counties; this set is the top 10 by population and sale volume.

• Denver tax sales
• Arapahoe County tax sales
• Jefferson County tax sales
• Adams County (this page)
• El Paso County tax sales
• Douglas County tax sales
• Larimer County tax sales
• Boulder County tax sales
• Weld County tax sales
• Mesa County tax sales

Keep going

Once a deadline puts you in a sale, the Land Investor Due Diligence Toolkit is the checklist and bid worksheet to run on each parcel before you bid. The same desk runs Florida tax deed sales, Texas tax sales, Pennsylvania tax sales, Georgia tax sales, North Carolina tax foreclosure sales, Ohio tax foreclosure sales, Illinois tax lien sales, Michigan tax foreclosure sales, Arizona tax lien sales, California tax defaulted property sales, Colorado tax lien sales and South Carolina tax sales, and the proven New York season, with the live membership, sits in the NY tax sale hub.