Land · Massachusetts tax title guide

Massachusetts tax title by city

Verified

Massachusetts runs tax enforcement city by city and town by town, not by county. The seller is always a municipal office, the collector who takes the land and the treasurer who manages the tax title, and the only court that can end an owner's right to redeem is the Land Court. That structure produces ten very different buyer experiences in the ten cities on this page, from a verified live auction with published terms to cities that publish no sale channel at all. Every record below was verified against official sources, and anything an official source does not publish is marked NOT PUBLISHED rather than filled in.

Two reforms shape every Massachusetts tax title purchase right now. Since November 1, 2024 the redemption interest rate is 8 percent, not the 16 percent older city pages still quote, and the foreclosure petition wait is 12 months from the taking. And under section 60:64A, a municipality that forecloses must elect to sell or retain within 30 days of the final judgment, market a sale property through a licensed broker first, auction it only with a floor of two thirds of appraised value, and account to the former owner for every dollar of excess equity. Start with the cities that publish a dated sale and full terms, and treat the honest gaps as diligence assignments, not dead ends.

Verify before you go: a city or town can move a date, change terms, cancel a sale, or pull parcels at any time. The official sale list is the final word.

The 10 jurisdictions

Each row links to that jurisdiction's own page: selling office, venue or platform, deposit, payment terms, leftover channel, and sources. Where a jurisdiction has not posted a dated sale, the row says so instead of projecting a pattern onto it.

How Massachusetts tax title works

• Massachusetts taxes are a lien on the land, billed by the city or town in quarterly installments due August 1, November 1, February 1 and May 1, with unpaid balances accruing interest at 14 percent per year before any taking (chapter 59, sections 57 and 57C).
• If the tax stays unpaid, the municipal collector makes a demand, waits at least 14 days, gives 14 days notice of intention, and then takes the land for the city or town by an instrument of taking recorded at the registry of deeds within 60 days (section 60:53).
• The amount owed becomes a tax title account held by the municipal treasurer, and later taxes and charges are certified into the account while the owner works out payment (section 60:61).
• The owner, or anyone with an interest in the land, can redeem at any time before a foreclosure petition is filed by paying the treasurer the full tax title account plus interest at 8 percent per year, in a lump sum or in installments (section 60:62).
• Before foreclosure, the treasurer can sell the tax title itself, assigning it to the highest bidder at a public auction for no less than the amount needed to redeem it, and the buyer steps into the town's shoes (section 60:52).
• Only the Land Court can end the right to redeem. The tax title holder petitions after 12 months from the taking, a title examiner is appointed, and interested parties are notified by registered mail (sections 60:65 and 60:66).
• If the court enters a decree, all rights of redemption are barred and the title becomes absolute, subject only to a narrow one year window to move to vacate the decree for extraordinary circumstances (sections 60:69, 60:64 and 60:69A).
• Foreclosed property the town sells goes first through a broker listing, then, if unsold after 12 months, an auction with a floor of two thirds of appraised value, and only then a custodian public auction, and the former owner keeps the excess equity above the tax debt and sale costs (sections 60:64A, 60:77B and 60:1).

In Massachusetts the Land Court decree, not the auction, is what makes a tax title buyer's title absolute, and since November 1, 2024 the former owner's excess equity above the tax title account must be accounted for and paid over, so the winning bid is never the whole story.

Research the parcels before you bid

A sale list gives you the parcel, 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 the country, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.

Open a PropertyRadar accountSee plans and pricing

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Get the alert, not just the calendar.

The dates on these pages are the free layer. The Pine membership is the paid layer, proven in New York: members pick their counties, get alerts when a sale is scheduled or a list posts, and receive the full property list with the analysis already done. Massachusetts jurisdictions open from the interest list first, in the order readers join it.

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.