Land · New Hampshire tax lien guide

Salem tax sales, New Hampshire

Verified

Salem's packet for April 16, 2022 calls the seven properties town owned rather than tax deeded parcel by parcel, and this record follows that wording: the auction is the town's verified channel for property it holds, and tax deeded parcels move through it, as the Board of Selectmen's minutes of Monday, November 14, 2022 show in miniature. There the board took up two lots, Map 49, Lots 1918 and 1920, that the town had taken by tax deed in 1964 and 1971, and authorized their sale by public notice and auction with a minimum acceptable bid of 4,200 dollars based on assessed value, a live example of the minimum sale amount RSA 80:80, II lets the governing body set, and of how long tax deeded land can sit in a New Hampshire town's hands: one of those deeds was more than fifty years old. Homes in the 2022 auction were offered with deposits of 10,000 dollars, two of the three occupied and not available to be shown, a reminder that occupancy risk sits with the buyer in this channel.

Selling office: Town of Salem Tax Collector, Salem Town Hall, 33 Geremonty Drive, Salem, NH 03079, phone (603) 890-2100.

Next sale: No sale announced after Saturday, April 16, 2022. The April 16, 2022 auction is the most recent verified Salem sale. The Board of Selectmen authorized two long held tax deeded lots for sale by public notice and auction on November 14, 2022, with a minimum acceptable bid of 4,200 dollars; no completed sale of those lots was found in the sources searched.

No date to calendar. Salem sales surface as an auction packet with the retained auctioneer and as Board of Selectmen agenda items setting minimum bids on tax deeded lots.

Dates and deadlines

Sources: JSJ Auctions, Public Auction, 7 Town Owned Properties, Salem, NH, April 16, 2022 (packet 22-137, retained auctioneer). Town of Salem, Town Clerk (Town Hall, 33 Geremonty Drive). 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 Salem 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 Salem, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.

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How New Hampshire tax liens work

• New Hampshire collects delinquent real estate taxes through its cities and towns under the tax lien procedure in RSA 80:58 to 80:91, which each municipality adopts locally. There is no tax sale and no auction of liens.
• Taxes are a lien on the real estate. If all taxes are not paid in full by December 1 after assessment, the collector, after at least 30 days notice of impending lien by certified mail (RSA 80:60), executes a lien in favor of the municipality itself and reports it to the county register of deeds within 30 days (RSA 80:61 and RSA 80:64). Only a municipality, a county, or the state may hold the lien (RSA 80:63).
• Interest runs at 8 percent per annum on taxes unpaid after December 1 (RSA 76:13), and at 14 percent per annum on the whole recorded lien amount from the date the lien is executed (RSA 80:69). Mortgagees of record are notified within 60 days after execution (RSA 80:65).
• Anyone with a legal interest may redeem at any time before a deed is given, by paying the lien amount with 14 percent interest and the statutory costs; partial payments are allowed and are refunded if redemption is not completed (RSA 80:69 and RSA 80:71).
• After 2 years from execution, and after at least 30 days further notice to the owner and to mortgagees (RSA 80:77 and RSA 80:77-a), the collector deeds the property to the municipality (RSA 80:76). A municipality may refuse a deed over environmental or other liability concerns, which leaves the lien and the redemption right in effect indefinitely.
• The municipality may then sell the tax deeded property, under governing body authority, at public auction or by advertised sealed bids, or in another manner as justice may require (RSA 80:80). Most larger New Hampshire municipalities auction through a retained auctioneer.
• Before any offering, the former owner must be notified at least 90 days ahead and may repurchase by paying all back taxes, interest, costs, and the statutory penalty (RSA 80:89).
• On a municipal sale, the municipality may keep only the back taxes, interest, costs, and penalty defined in RSA 80:90, which includes a penalty of 10 percent of the equalized assessed value. Any excess must be paid to the former owner, through a Superior Court interpleader or, where there are no record lienholders and the owner is easily identified, by direct payment (RSA 80:88). This surplus rule dates from 1998; New Hampshire enacted no amendment responding to Tyler v. Hennepin County.

How buying works in Salem

Same day registration at the sale site, opening one hour before the sale in the April 2022 packet. No advance registration, affidavit, or pre qualification procedure is published.

• There is no lien auction to bid at New Hampshire never puts its liens in front of investors: the lien is executed to the municipality and stays there. Do not budget for a lien sale, a certificate, or an interest rate auction in this state. The investable event is the municipality's sale of tax deeded real estate, two or more years after the tax year that started the process.
• Deposits are due in full, in bank funds, at the sale The auction packets in this set require non refundable deposits, commonly 1,000 dollars to 15,000 dollars per property depending on value, in cash or by bank or certified check at the sale, with no personal checks. The balance, plus a buyer's premium of 7.5 percent or 10 percent, is due within 30 days at most sales (45 days at Manchester), and the sale is not final until the municipality confirms it.
• The former owner moves before you do By statute the former owner gets notice at least 90 days before the offering and can take the property back by paying the full RSA 80:90 amount. Nashua's current authorization says its listed properties are auctioned only if the prior owner does not repurchase. A listed property can therefore disappear before sale day for reasons that have nothing to do with bidding.
• The deed is thin and the property is as is Conveyance is by deed without covenants or by quitclaim deed, the property is sold as is, where is, some properties are occupied with eviction left to the buyer, and there are no financing or title insurance contingencies in the Manchester terms. Price your diligence accordingly: the discount for title and condition risk is the deal.

Terms: what a bid actually costs

Tax deeded property that goes unsold

NOT PUBLISHED as a separate procedure, and Salem's own record shows the practical answer: parcels can remain town owned for decades, as Lots 1918 and 1920 did after tax deeds in 1964 and 1971, until the Board of Selectmen authorizes a sale and sets any minimum bid. Under RSA 80:80 the town may reoffer a parcel at auction or by advertised sealed bids, retain it for public uses under paragraph V, or dispose of it as justice may require under paragraphs III and VI, and the former owner's repurchase right under RSA 80:89 must be honored before an offering.

Before you bid

• Work the two year clock, not a sale calendar The pipeline is fixed by statute: lien in the spring after the December due date, deed after 2 years, municipal sale after that. The properties in any given auction trace to liens executed at least two years earlier, and the collector's office, not a calendar site, is the authority on what is coming.
• Read the auctioneer's packet for the actual terms Deposits, premiums, closing windows, and confirmation rights are set sale by sale in the bidder packet issued for the municipality. The packets for Manchester, Nashua, Concord, Rochester, Derry, and Salem sales in this set are the operative documents, and their terms differ in deposit size, premium, and closing period.
• Check whether the sale authority is current A governing body needs authorization to convey tax deeded property, and under RSA 80:80, IV the authority expires in one year unless it was granted indefinitely until rescinded. Nashua's Resolution R-25-221 is an indefinite grant effective December 31, 2025; a sale resting on a lapsed one year grant is a title question worth asking about before you bid.
• Understand what the municipality keeps The city's recovery on the sale is capped at back taxes, interest, costs, and the RSA 80:90 penalty, and any excess belongs to the former owner through the RSA 80:88 interpleader process. That cap is why minimum bids and confirmation rights appear in these sales, and why a very high bid does not buy the city anything extra.

Every New Hampshire jurisdiction in this set

One page per jurisdiction, each verified against the city or town's own publications and the current text of RSA 80. New Hampshire runs its tax liens municipally, with no lien auction anywhere in the state; this set is the 10 largest tax sale jurisdictions.

• Manchester tax sales
• Nashua tax sales
• Concord tax sales
• Dover tax sales
• Rochester tax sales
• Portsmouth tax sales
• Laconia tax sales
• Keene tax sales
• Derry tax sales
• Salem (this page)

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, Nebraska tax certificate sales, Minnesota tax-forfeited land sales, Utah final tax sales, Washington tax foreclosure sales, Oregon tax foreclosure sales, Connecticut tax sales, Massachusetts tax title sales, Rhode Island tax sales, Vermont tax sales, New Hampshire tax lien sales and Maine tax lien sales, and the proven New York season, with the live membership, sits in the NY tax sale hub.