Land · Utah tax sale guide

Salt Lake County tax sales, Utah

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Salt Lake County runs the sale by ordinance, not by a posted bidder packet. The Auditor offers property whose taxes are four years delinquent at the May sale, and the county publishes the result as a final tax letter to the County Council, with sold, withdrawn, preferential, and struck parcels listed separately. The 2026 results show sold parcels, six strip parcels marked as preference sales, and four strip parcels struck to the county. Excess over the tax owed is offered back to the original owner, and what cannot be returned within 90 days goes to the state unclaimed property division. The classic mistakes are assuming a posted date, a posted format, or a posted payment rule exists when the county has not published one, and assuming a strip parcel is a normal buy when the results show most strips went by preference or were struck to the county.

Selling office: Salt Lake County Auditor, Chris Harding, 2001 South State Street, Ste N3-300, Salt Lake City, UT 84190, Phone: 385-468-7200

Next sale: No dated 2026 sale published. The county states the 2026 tax sale has concluded and that it was the Final May 2026 Tax Sale, with final results before the County Council on Tuesday, June 16, 2026. The exact sale date, start time, and format are NOT PUBLISHED in the county sources read.

2027 sale: the county states information regarding the 2027 tax sale will be available April 2027. A dated May 2027 sale is NOT PUBLISHED.

Dates and deadlines

Sources: Salt Lake County Auditor, Property Tax Sale. Salt Lake County Auditor, Rules and Procedures. Salt Lake County Auditor, Past Years Tax Sale Results. Salt Lake County, 2026 Tax Sale Results. Salt Lake County Treasurer, Find Excess Funds. Salt Lake County Auditor. 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 Salt Lake 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 Salt Lake County, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.

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How Utah final tax sales work

• Utah's final tax sale is a deed sale at the end of a four year road, not a lien sale. Property taxes are due on November 30 (section 59-2-1331). If a property is not redeemed by March 15 following the lapse of four years from the date the tax or a tax notice charge became delinquent, the county treasurer files the tax sale listing with the county auditor (section 59-2-1343), and the auditor selects a date and conducts the final tax sale in May or June of that year, the fifth year after the delinquency began (section 59-2-1351). The popular statement that Utah sells property five years delinquent is the practical shape of the same rule: four full years must lapse, the listing follows in the March after the lapse, and the sale lands in the May or June after that. Nothing is sold before that point, and no certificate stage exists in between.
• The auditor runs the sale, and the governing body accepts the bids. The sale is held either at the front door of the county courthouse or through an electronic process that lets the public observe and participate (section 59-2-1351). Notice goes by certified and first class mail, or first class mail plus a tracked shipping service, to the last known recorded owner, to occupants of improved property, and to other interests of record as of the preceding March 15, and is published at least four weeks before the sale on the county website with a newspaper advertisement in a county of the first class, or four times in a newspaper in the four successive weeks before the sale in smaller counties. After the sale the county governing body accepts or ratifies the bids; the counties in this set publish that ratification in commission or council minutes, which is where several of their 2026 sale records live. One county in this set breaks the seller pattern on its own published record: Davis County's 2026 sale was run by the County Controller, not the auditor, and its page says so.
• The governing body takes one of two bids, and the second is the one summaries miss. It may accept the highest bid for the entire parcel, so long as no bid is accepted for less than the total amount of taxes, tax notice charges, penalties, interest and administrative costs. Or it may accept a bid paying that full amount in cash for less than the entire parcel, in which case the accepted bid is the one taking the smallest portion of the parcel, a strip bid around the perimeter or one that blocks access to the remainder must be rejected, and the balance of the parcel is considered redeemed by the owner (section 59-2-1351.1). The auditor may combine contiguous parcels of one owner that form a single economic or functional unit before offering them. A purchaser who takes an undivided interest of forty nine percent or less is capped on a later sale of the parcel at the greater of the price paid plus twelve percent interest or a pro rata share of the sale price (section 59-2-1351.7), which is the statute pricing the strip bid strategy rather than forbidding it.
• There is no preferential bid in the statute, and the county is never a preferential bidder. Part 13 contains no preference for the county, for any public entity, or for an adjoining owner. Preferential or preferred bidder procedures exist only where a county has adopted them by ordinance, on the auditor's recommendation, for matters the Tax Commission rules do not address, the same authority that produces county registration, deposit and payment terms (section 59-2-1351.1, subsection 2(b)). Where a preference operates it is county law: Salt Lake County sold six strip parcels by preference in its 2026 sale on its published results, and Cache County's code runs possessory interests and then abutting owners ahead of the public on nonviable parcels. A bidder who assumes a statewide preference, or none, without reading the county ordinance has misread the room either way.
• Redemption ends at the sale, and there is no notice of expiration and no deed waiting period. Any person may redeem on behalf of the record owner at any time before the tax sale by paying the county treasurer all delinquent taxes, tax notice charges, interest, penalties and administrative costs (section 59-2-1346). After the sale there is no redemption at all: no post sale redemption period, no holder served notice, no months of waiting for a deed. The one post sale redemption in Part 13, in section 59-2-1357, belongs to the separate county lien foreclosure sale, a different proceeding that these pages do not cover. For the auditor's final tax sale, sale day is the deadline, which is why owners paying in the last week shrink every county's list, and why the audited list close to the sale is the only list to trust.
• The deed follows governing body acceptance, and it conveys fee simple. After acceptance, the county auditor executes a deed in the name of the county conveying the property to the purchaser in fee simple, and the county recorder records it (section 59-2-1351.1). The deed is prima facie evidence of the regularity of all proceedings after the date the taxes or charges first became delinquent and of the conveyance in fee simple. It is not a warranty deed: the county warrants nothing about condition, boundaries or title beyond the statutory presumption. A purchaser of an invalid tax title holds instead a lien for the purchase price under section 59-2-1352, and the proceedings carry a presumption of regularity with the burden of showing an irregularity on the person who asserts it (section 59-2-1362).
• Money above the tax debt is not paid back to the owner at the sale; it is unclaimed property. Any sale funds in excess of the amount needed to satisfy the delinquent taxes, tax notice charges, penalties, interest and administrative costs are treated as unclaimed property under Title 67, Chapter 4a (section 59-2-1351.1, subsection 7). The same rule catches the excess on county held parcels the county later disposes of (section 59-2-1351.5). Counties work the claim mechanics in their own terms, and the totals can be large relative to the tax debt: Tooele County's official 2026 results sheet records $156,433.01 in delinquent tax due against $4,342,068.93 in sold price, with $3,864,356.74 shown due back to owners through that process. A buyer pricing a parcel should know the premium they pay over the tax debt does not stay with the county as profit.
• Parcels nobody bids on are struck off to the county, and the county is then the seller. Property offered for which there is no purchaser is struck off to the county by the auditor and fee simple title vests in the county (section 59-2-1351.3). The county legislative body may later dispose of or lease that property under section 59-2-1351.5, which is a second, quieter sales channel: Box Elder County reoffered a county held parcel in a dated October 2026 sale under that section, and Tooele County's two unsold 2026 parcels were struck to the county for a later surplus decision by its council. Parcels struck off in a county with valuable leftovers are worth watching after the headline sale, because the county's disposal terms are ordinance terms and can differ sharply from sale day terms.
• The title quiets on a four year clock that runs outside the tax code. An action or defense to recover, take possession of, quiet title to, or determine ownership of real property may not be commenced against the holder of a tax title after four years from the date of the sale, conveyance or transfer of the tax title, except for a legal title owner who actually occupied or possessed the property inside those four years and except for a city or town defense based on an equal or superior lien (section 78B-2-206). Buyers who need marketable, insurable title sooner than four years price a quiet title action into the purchase; buyers who can wait let the statute do the work. Either way the four year horizon, not the deed date, is the real ownership timeline in Utah.

How buying works in Salt Lake County

Bidder registration rules and any registration deadline for the 2026 sale: NOT PUBLISHED in the county sources read.

• Sale day is final in a way most states are not. Redemption ends at the sale and the deed follows acceptance, so the research, the title thinking and the maximum all have to be finished before the auction, with no redemption window afterward in which to discover a problem. Utah rewards the prepared bidder and gives the unprepared one no recovery period.
• Know which bid your county is actually taking. Entire parcel highest bid and smallest portion full payment bid are different auctions with different winners, and counties narrow the choice by ordinance. Box Elder sells entire parcels only; Salt Lake sold strips by preference in 2026. Bidding a strip strategy in an entire parcel county, or the reverse, wastes the registration entirely.
• Price the premium and the wire deadline, not just the bid. The online counties in this set add an 8 percent buyer premium and demand wire payment through a processor within days, with deposits forfeited on a failed purchase. The winning number on screen is not the cost; the cost is the bid plus the premium plus funds moved on the county's clock.
• Watch the list shrink. Owners redeem until the sale begins, and lists contract hard in the final weeks: Summit County's audited list went from 8 parcels in its May 7, 2026 notice to 4 in its May 19 update. Research spent on the first published list is partly wasted by design; the updated list near sale day is the working document.

Terms: what a bid actually costs

What happens to parcels that drew no bid

Parcels that drew no acceptable bid were struck off to Salt Lake County. The 2026 results close with a struck off declaration signed by the Auditor listing four strip parcels, with fee simple title in the county.

Before you bid

• Read the county ordinance and sale terms, not just the statute. Registration, deposits, preferences, payment forms and even the bid method are ordinance matters in Utah. The statute sets the floor amount and the deed; everything a bidder touches before sale day lives in the county's own published terms for the year.
• Re-verify the parcel on the final audited list. Lists shrink by redemption, deferral and correction right up to the sale; Tooele County's 2026 list began with 69 parcels and its minutes and results sheet still disagree on how many sold. Fund against the county's last published update, and expect the room to be bidding on fewer parcels than the first list promised.
• Plan the exit around the four year horizon. The auditor's deed is prima facie evidence, not a warranty, and challenges are barred only after four years under section 78B-2-206, with an exception for an owner in actual possession. Decide before bidding whether the parcel justifies a quiet title action now or a four year hold, and price that choice into the maximum.
• Set the maximum before the sale opens. The free Max-Bid Calculator below works backwards from your resale price. In Utah run it with the buyer premium and the administrative fee inside the cost, and with the full amount due as the floor: no bid under the taxes, charges, penalties, interest and costs can be accepted at all.

Every Utah county in this set

One page per county, each verified against the county auditor's own publications and the current text of Utah Code Title 59, Chapter 2, Part 13. Utah has 29 counties; this set is the top 10 by population.

• Salt Lake County (this page)
• Utah County tax sales
• Davis County tax sales
• Weber County tax sales
• Washington County tax sales
• Cache County tax sales
• Tooele County tax sales
• Iron County tax sales
• Box Elder County tax sales
• Summit 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, Nebraska tax certificate sales, Minnesota tax-forfeited land sales and Utah final tax sales, and the proven New York season, with the live membership, sits in the NY tax sale hub.