Land · Ohio tax sale guide

Portage County tax foreclosure sales

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Portage splits its Mondays by case type, and the split is the whole game for a tax buyer: general foreclosures sell online on RealAuction at 11:00 a.m., while delinquent tax sales are held in person at the same hour in the Justice Center courtroom in Ravenna, with a deposit of 10 percent of the bid instead of the online tiers. The Sheriff's posted 2026 date list runs through November 9, 2026.

Selling office: Portage County Sheriff's Office (sheriff and tax sales); Portage County Treasurer (delinquent taxes)

Next sale: Sales run Mondays at 11:00 a.m.; the Sheriff's posted 2026 date list runs through Monday, November 9, 2026. November 9, 2026 is the most recent date on the Sheriff's posted list; the list is the county's calendar, and it runs on the standing Monday schedule below.

The county also publishes a Delinquent Land Tax Notice list under ORC 5721.03.

Dates and deadlines

Sources: Portage County Sheriff, Sheriff's Sales. Portage County Delinquent Land Tax Notice. Confirm with the selling office before relying on any date on this page: sales move, terms change, and owners can pay and stop a foreclosure at any point before the sale is confirmed.

Research Portage 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 Portage County, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.

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How Ohio tax foreclosure sales work

• Taxes go delinquent and the lien attaches. Ohio real estate taxes are a lien on the property. The county auditor and treasurer certify the delinquent land, and the county prosecuting attorney files a foreclosure action in the court of common pleas under ORC 5721.18. Counties that have adopted it can also run an expedited foreclosure before the county board of revision under ORC 323.66, a track aimed at abandoned land. There is no lien auction to buy into as an individual: Ohio lets its larger counties sell tax lien certificates only in bulk, in large bundles to qualified financial lenders (ORC 5721.30 to 5721.43), and a lender that buys certificates forecloses through this same sheriff sale after at least a year, which is why several counties in this set run a separate certificate foreclosure sale day.
• The court orders the sale and the sheriff runs it. Once the court finds the taxes due, it orders the property sold. The county sheriff conducts the sale the way Ohio judicial sales run: advertised in advance, with the sale list posted by the sheriff, and held in person at the place the county designates or online on the Official Public Sheriff Sale Website where the county has moved its sales there (ORC 2329.153).
• The first sale has a statutory floor. At the first offering, the property cannot sell for less than the lesser of two amounts: the auditor's fair market value of the parcel plus the costs of the action, or the total of the taxes, assessments, charges, penalties, interest and costs the court found due (ORC 5721.19(A), as amended effective April 9, 2025). If it does not sell, it is offered again on the second date in the advertisement; a parcel that still draws no buyer is forfeited to the state and moves to the leftover channels described below.
• The gavel is not the end: the court confirms the sale. After the sale the sheriff reports it and the court reviews and confirms it (ORC 2329.31). The purchaser pays the deposit at the sale and the balance on the terms the order sets, and the sheriff executes the deed after confirmation. A winning bid that is not paid is contempt territory: read your county's deposit and balance rules before you bid, because they are enforced.
• The owner can redeem until confirmation, and never after. At any time before the court confirms the sale, the owner may redeem by paying the full amount due, taxes, penalties, interest and costs (ORC 5721.25). The moment the sale is confirmed, the redemption right ends. (In a board of revision case the equivalent cutoff is the expiry of the alternative redemption period under ORC 323.78.) That hard stop is what makes an Ohio tax deed different from a Texas or Georgia one: no two year wait, no 12 month premium period, and no redemption premium paid to the buyer at all.

How bidding works in Portage County

Registration and a Purchaser Information Form are required. Online, register with RealAuction and meet the deposit wiring deadlines below. In person at a tax sale, bid in the Justice Center courtroom on Monday at 11:00 a.m.

• The deposit is real money, committed at the sale. Ohio sheriffs collect the deposit in the form and on the deadline the county publishes, and a purchaser who fails to pay the balance faces forfeiture of the deposit and court sanctions. Read your county's rule above before you bid.
• Confirmation is the finish line. Nothing is final until the court confirms the sale. Until that entry files, the owner can still pay everything due and take the property back out of the sale.

Terms: what a bid actually costs

Same hour, two rooms

A Portage tax buyer who registers on RealAuction for the Monday 11:00 a.m. sale is in the wrong room: that calendar is general foreclosures. Tax sales happen in person in Ravenna at the same hour, on a 10 percent of bid deposit, and the online deposit tiers and deadlines do not apply to them.

Before you bid

• Know which track the parcel is on. A common pleas foreclosure and an expedited board of revision foreclosure reach the same sheriff sale by different roads, and the board of revision track is aimed at abandoned land, with the county land bank often in line for what does not sell. The track changes who else wants the parcel.
• Check the list in sale week. Owners pay, courts stay sales, and parcels get withdrawn up to sale day. The advertised list is the starting list, never the selling list.
• Price the confirmation wait, not a redemption period. Your capital is committed from the deposit to the deed, and until the court confirms, the owner can redeem at the full amount due. There is no premium for that wait in Ohio; the payoff is a deed with no redemption tail once confirmation lands.
• Set the maximum before the sale opens. The free Max-Bid Calculator below works backwards from your resale or hold value to the highest bid you can pay, with the costs shown.

Every Ohio county in this set

One page per county, each verified against its own sheriff, treasurer or court source. Ohio has 88 counties; this set is the top 20 by population and sale activity.

• Cuyahoga County tax sales
• Franklin County tax sales
• Hamilton County tax sales
• Summit County tax sales
• Montgomery County tax sales
• Lucas County tax sales
• Butler County tax sales
• Stark County tax sales
• Lorain County tax sales
• Mahoning County tax sales
• Warren County tax sales
• Lake County tax sales
• Delaware County tax sales
• Clermont County tax sales
• Trumbull County tax sales
• Medina County tax sales
• Licking County tax sales
• Greene County tax sales
• Portage County (this page)
• Fairfield 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 and North Carolina tax foreclosure sales, and the proven New York season, with the live membership, sits in the NY tax sale hub.