Land · Iowa tax sale guide

Johnson County tax sales, Iowa

Verified

Johnson County is the in person holdout in this group. The 2026 sale ran in Room 110 of the Administration Building in Iowa City, starting at 8:00 a.m., with an auctioneer announcing each parcel, bidders bidding down in whole percentage points from 100 percent, and a buyer chosen by random selection who must say SOLD or pass. There is no online bidding and no auction website. Registration is the trap: bidders must pre-register at the Treasurer office by 5:00 p.m. on June 5, pay $58 per bidder tax identification number, file a signed W-9, and bring the receipt and bidder number on sale day. Non individuals also need an agent designation or a verified Chapter 547 statement on file. Payment is due in full at the end of the sale, by personal check or money order only.

Selling office: Johnson County Treasurer, Scott Finlayson, County Treasurer, Johnson County Administration Building, 913 S Dubuque St, PO Box 2420, Iowa City, IA 52244, Tax Department phone 319-356-6087.

Next sale: Monday, June 15, 2026 annual tax sale (held). The county Tax Sale Information page, the 2026 Tax Sale Procedures, the June 15, 2026 Bidder Registration Form, and the June 3, 2026 delinquent tax list published by Treasurer Scott Finlayson all state the sale on Monday, June 15, 2026 at 8:00 a.m. in Room 110. The county news item of June 3, 2026 told owners to settle by 5 p.m. on Friday, June 12, 2026. No parcel total and no post sale results are published.

As of November 9, 2026, no dated June 2027 sale is published. The county procedures state the annual pattern only: the annual tax sale is usually held by the Johnson County Treasurer on the third Monday in June at 8:00 a.m.

Dates and deadlines

Sources: Johnson County Tax Sale Information. Johnson County 2026 Tax Sale Procedures. Johnson County Tax Sale Publication Lists. Johnson County Treasurer news page. 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 Johnson 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 Johnson County, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.

Open a PropertyRadar accountSee plans and pricing

Pine and Brass is a PropertyRadar partner. If you open an account through these links, we may earn a commission; it does not change the price you pay.

How Iowa tax sales work

• Iowa holds one sale a year, on the third Monday in June, and the county treasurer runs it. Under Iowa Code section 446.7 the treasurer offers every parcel on which taxes are delinquent, for the total amount of taxes, interest, fees and costs due. The notice discipline is statutory: the treasurer mails notice of the date, time and place to the person in whose name the parcel is taxed not later than May 1, and publishes it once in at least one official county newspaper at least one week and not more than three weeks before sale day (section 446.9). In 2026 the sale day was Monday, June 15, 2026. A different June date is allowed for good cause, which is one reason each county's own published date governs over the statewide pattern.
• The bid is a percentage of the parcel, not a price and not an interest rate. Bidders offer to pay the total amount due in exchange for a percentage of the parcel; the smallest percentage wins, the designated percentage may not be less than 1 percent, and an equal smallest bid is resolved by a random selection process run by the treasurer (section 446.16). The winner then pays the full total amount bid immediately, or the parcel is offered again (section 446.23). The percentage matters only later: if a deed issues, it conveys the undivided interest the percentage represents. A room full of buyers all pay the same dollars for a parcel; the auction decides how much of the parcel those dollars buy.
• The certificate earns a fixed statutory rate that nobody bids. The purchaser receives a certificate of purchase (section 446.29). When the owner redeems, the redemption price includes interest of 2 percent per month on the amount for which the parcel was sold, counting each fraction of a month as an entire month, and the same rate on any subsequent taxes the purchaser paid (section 447.1). Summaries that describe Iowa bidding as an interest rate auction are importing another state's system: in Iowa the rate is set by the statute, the same for every certificate in every county, and the only competitive variable is the percentage.
• Redemption stays open until the holder closes it, and owners use the whole window. The owner may redeem at any time before the right of redemption expires by paying the treasurer the amount sold for, the certificate fee, the 2 percent per month interest, and subsequent taxes with interest (section 447.1). Parcels leave the published list as owners pay, right up to the sale, and certificates are redeemed at the treasurer's office, not by paying the holder. The certificate is an interest-bearing claim with a deed at the end of a long fuse, not a purchase of the land on sale day.
• The fuse is one year and nine months, and the 90 days run from completed service, not from the notice. After one year and nine months from the date of a regular sale, the holder may cause a notice of expiration of the right of redemption to be served by both regular mail and certified mail on the person in possession, the person in whose name the parcel is taxed, and lienholders and other persons with an interest of record (section 447.9). Service is not complete until the affidavit of service, with the costs of service, is filed with the treasurer (section 447.12), and only then does the 90 day clock run; redemption must reach the treasurer, or the treasurer's authorized internet site, before the close of business on the ninetieth day. A holder who counts the 90 days from the mailing has started the clock early and can lose the deed over it.
• The deed follows immediately when the 90 days expire. On return of the certificate and payment of the deed and recording fees, the treasurer makes out, signs, acknowledges and records the deed before delivering it (sections 448.1 and 448.3), and the recorded deed vests the purchaser with the right, title, interest and estate of the state, the county and the former owner, as to the percentage the bid designated. Challenges are narrow: an equitable action in district court (section 448.6), a bar on actions brought more than three years after execution and recording (section 448.12), and a faster bar where the holder records the affidavit described in section 448.15, after which a claim must be filed within 120 days and suit brought within 60 days after that (sections 448.15 and 448.16). The two year recital in the deed form in section 448.2 is form language, not a waiting rule.
• The clocks are not uniform, and this is the correction that matters most on publicly held paper. The one year nine month wait belongs to the regular sale. A certificate sold at a public bidder sale under section 446.18 carries a nine month wait before the expiration notice may be served. Certificates arising from a housing purchase under section 446.19A or a public nuisance tax sale under section 446.19B carry a three month wait (section 447.9). Applying the regular sale clock to a public bidder certificate overstates the wait by a full year, and to a housing or nuisance certificate by a year and a half. Which sale produced the certificate is printed on the county's own records and decides the deed timeline before any other fact does.
• Parcels nobody bids on do not disappear, and Iowa law never calls what happens next a scavenger sale. Parcels previously advertised and offered for one year or more that remain unsold for want of bidders are offered at a public bidder sale on the day of the regular sale or an adjournment of it (section 446.18). If no bid is received there, or the bid is less than the total amount due, the county, through its treasurer, must bid the full total amount due and take the certificate without paying money, the taxing bodies being charged their shares (section 446.19); a city may bid to protect its own interests but is not the default holder. The word scavenger appears nowhere in chapters 446, 447 or 448. Certificates are assignable by endorsement and entry in the county system at the treasurer's office for a 100 dollar transaction fee, 10 dollars for an assignment by an estate or by a county, and may not be assigned to a person entitled to redeem the parcel other than a municipality (section 446.31).
• Registration is partly statutory and partly county terms, and the counties do not run the same sale. The statute authorizes a reasonable registration fee capped in total at the cost of the sale and limits who may register, bid or own a certificate, with a federal tax identification number and either a secretary of state agent designation or a chapter 547 verified statement required of non-individuals (section 446.16). Windows, payment forms and the platform are not in the statute at all. In the 2026 sales in this set, Polk and Woodbury Counties sold online only through GovEase with pre-bids, Dubuque and Story Counties took online bids only through Iowa Tax Auction inside a single morning, Linn County ran its sale at the Treasurer's Office with bids online, and Scott, Black Hawk and Johnson Counties sold fully in person, Johnson by oral bidding. Read the county's own packet for the year in front of you; there is no statewide Iowa registration window, deposit rule or platform.

How buying works in Johnson County

Pre-registration at the Treasurer office only, by 5:00 p.m., June 5, 2026, for the June 15 sale. Fee $58 per bidder tax identification number. The bidder keeps the receipt and bidder number and brings both on sale day. A signed W-9 must be completed before purchases. Bidders who are not individuals must have a designation of agent for service of process on file with the Iowa Secretary of State or a verified statement meeting Chapter 547 on file with the Johnson County Recorder. A written appointee may bid for a registered bidder in that bidder absence, per the procedures.

• Everyone pays the same dollars; the bid only sizes the share. The total amount due is fixed by the tax record, and the winning bidder pays all of it for the smallest percentage offered. The underwriting question is therefore double: is this parcel worth the full amount due as an interest bearing claim, and is the percentage you would have to bid to win it a share you would accept as a deed. A 1 percent win on a researched parcel is a deed to a sliver.
• Payment is due at the gavel, in the county's form. Section 446.23 makes the purchase money immediate. The online counties settle through their platforms, in person counties take the instruments their packets name, and Johnson County in 2026 took personal checks and money orders only, at the end of the sale. A bidder funded a day late is a spectator.
• The interest rate rewards patience, not aggression. Two percent per month is fixed under section 447.1 and cannot be bid away. The certificate's economics turn on redemption likelihood and the deed clock the certificate carries, regular sale paper at one year nine months or public bidder paper at nine months, not on anything that happens in the bidding.
• Registration closes before the sale opens, differently in every county. Fees, windows and identity rules vary: paper registration with original signatures in Black Hawk County, online only registration in the platform counties, one bidder number per tax identification number in Scott County. The buyers who miss Iowa sales miss the registration deadline, not the bidding.

Terms: what a bid actually costs

What happens to parcels that do not sell in Johnson County

Johnson County publishes an adjourned sale channel. The 2026 procedures state that the sale is held on the third Monday in June at 8:00 a.m. and for each succeeding day for as long as purchasers are present or until all parcels have been sold, and that the adjourned annual sale is then to the following month according to the date shown on the calendar. The published delinquent list also includes public bidder tax listings, and the procedures give public bidder parcels a shorter path, with the 90 day Notice of Right of Redemption available after nine months, against one year and nine months for regular sale parcels.

Before you bid

• Read the county's own 2026 or current year packet before anything statewide. The statute sets the frame; the county's tax sale packet sets the platform, the registration window, the fee, the payment forms and the sale hours, and the counties in this set split between two online platforms and in person rooms. The packet is the sale.
• Ask which sale produced any certificate you are offered secondhand. The deed clock is nine months or three months on public bidder, housing and nuisance paper, against one year nine months on regular sale paper. An assignment priced off the wrong clock misprices the wait by a year or more.
• Re-verify the parcel against the final list. Owners pay and parcels are pulled up to sale day, and lists published weeks ahead shrink. The treasurer's final published list for the sale is the only list worth a funded registration fee.
• Set the maximum before the sale opens. The free Max-Bid Calculator below works backwards from your exit value. In Iowa run it twice: once for the claim at full amount due with 2 percent per month interest, and once for the deed outcome at the percentage you realistically have to bid to win.

Every Iowa county in this set

One page per county, each verified against the county treasurer's own publications and the current text of Iowa Code chapters 446, 447 and 448. Iowa has 99 counties; this set is the top 10 by population.

• Polk County tax sales
• Linn County tax sales
• Scott County tax sales
• Black Hawk County tax sales
• Woodbury County tax sales
• Johnson County (this page)
• Dubuque County tax sales
• Story County tax sales
• Pottawattamie County tax sales
• Dallas 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, South Carolina tax sales, Indiana tax lien sales, Tennessee delinquent tax sales, Wisconsin tax deed sales, Missouri tax sales, New Jersey tax lien sales, Maryland tax lien sales, West Virginia tax sales, Virginia tax sales, Oklahoma tax resale, Kansas tax foreclosure sales, Arkansas tax-delinquent land sales, Alabama tax sales, Kentucky certificate of delinquency sales, Mississippi tax land sales, Nevada tax deed sales, New Mexico delinquent property tax sales, Iowa tax lien sales and Nebraska tax certificate sales, and the proven New York season, with the live membership, sits in the NY tax sale hub.