Skip to content
Tax Sale Atlas

Adams County, CO tax sales

Tax Sale Atlas maps the Adams County, CO tax sale, one of 2,553 counties in 30 states. Colorado sells tax lien certificates paying up to 14%, redeemable for 3 years. Sale office, calendar and list locations read from the county’s own official pages on Jul 30, 2026.

How tax lien and tax deed sales work in Adams County, seat of Brighton: sale calendar, auction platform, over-the-counter lists, and the offices that run each sale.

New to tax sales? Read how Colorado tax sales work or look terms up in the glossary.

Next sale
There is no fixed calendar.
Format
RealAuction
Registration
What sells is a certificate of option for treasurer's deed, not the parcel outright.
County office
720.523.6160 (tax lien sales); 303.659.2120 (Treasurer main)
Every displayed fact carries a source badge. Verified Jul 30, 2026 against official county and state pages.How we verify
On this page

How Adams County sells delinquent taxes

Tax certificate sale (lien)

RealAuction
Run by
Adams County Treasurer & Public Trustee
Frequency
annual
Typical timing
Late October, held online over roughly two weeks.
Registration
Register online at adams.coloradotaxsale.com.
Next expected
by the second Monday in December, 2026 (window; exact date posts closer to the sale)
Sale list
Tax lien sale notice and delinquent real estate tax list (tax year 2024)
When it runs
Late October, held online over roughly two weeks. The county Tax Lien Sale page states: "The Adams County Tax Lien Sale is an internet tax sale. The 2025 Live Tax Lien Sale will be held October 20 to 31, 2025. This is for 2024 taxes payable in 2025." The published sale notice set registration for October 13 through October 24, 2025, with bidding open October 20 through October 31, 2025. As of late July 2026 the county had not yet posted dates for the next sale; the page says information for the current year's sale becomes available in mid-October.
Registration and deposit

Register online at adams.coloradotaxsale.com. The county notice states registration and the placing of the deposit are done online at the tax lien sale website, and that for the 2025 sale registration opened October 13 and had to be completed by October 24, 2025. Each buyer completes an online form with name, address, telephone number and Social Security number, which is used for certificates and for refund and redemption ACH payments. An auction participation fee of $12.00 per lien applies and is nonrefundable. Bidding and modification of bids stay open until the closing hour on the final day of the sale.

Sale format and venue
Bidding is by premium (the county calls them bonus bids). Premiums paid on liens are nonrefundable and do not accrue interest. Each parcel is offered under Title 39, Article 11 of the Colorado Revised Statutes, and the published sequence is followed as closely as practical. Redemption interest on 2025 certificates was set at 14% per annum under C.R.S. 39-12-103, with partial months counted as a full month; the separate 8% rate cited in the notice applies only to wrongfully sold liens under C.R.S. 39-12-111. Three years after the certificate date, an unredeemed certificate holder may apply to the Treasurer for a Treasurer's Deed; the application takes a $1,250.00 certified check as a deposit against costs, applications may be filed three calendar months before the third anniversary, and processing normally runs five to seven months. Subsequent-year taxes are endorsed (sub-taxed), which the county notes normally happens after August 1 because redemption interest accrues from that date. County officials and employees, their immediate family, and their agents may not buy at the sale. The Treasurer also publishes an unredeemed tax lien list and a county-held lien list, and runs a separate mobile home tax sale with its own notice and listing files. The list URL above is the year-specific advertised list; check the Tax Lien Sale page for the current year's replacement.
Register on RealAuction
Source: Adams County Treasurer & Public Trustee, Tax Lien Sale· Verified Jul 30, 2026

Tax deed sale

Run by
County Treasurer
Frequency
on application
Typical timing
There is no fixed calendar.
Registration
What sells is a certificate of option for treasurer's deed, not the parcel outright.
When it runs
There is no fixed calendar. A public auction is scheduled only when a certificate holder applies for one, at least three years after the tax lien sale, and the treasurer must hold it between 110 and 125 calendar days after the known interested party notice is first published or mailed.
Registration and deposit

What sells is a certificate of option for treasurer's deed, not the parcel outright. The treasurer may only accept bids above the combined amount owed to the lawful holder plus the treasurer's fees and costs. County officials, county employees acting in their individual capacity, and their immediate family members may not bid. Payment is by cash, cashier's check, bank check, or electronic funds transfer subject to the treasurer's bidding rules. Any overbid goes to junior lienors who filed a notice of intent to redeem and then to the property owner. Confirm the notice, the bidding rules, and the auction venue with the county treasurer.

Sale format and venue
This Article 11.5 process replaced direct deed issuance on July 1, 2024. Colorado does not hold a routine calendar tax deed sale, so treat this as an occasional, application-driven auction rather than a recurring event.
Source: C.R.S. 39-11.5-102 - Application for public auctionC.R.S. 39-11.5-102· Verified Jul 29, 2026

Adams County tax sale list and auction calendar

For Adams County tax sale 2026 searches, use the county-run sources below rather than a copied parcel list, and confirm the parcel, registration cutoff, deposit, and payment deadline against the county before you bid. If the parcels on this list are vacant land rather than houses, what buying land at a tax sale hands you is the place to start.

  1. Get the advertised list

    Use Tax lien sale notice and delinquent real estate tax list (tax year 2024) for the current advertised parcels, then recheck it before the auction.

  2. Register to bid

    What sells is a certificate of option for treasurer's deed, not the parcel outright. Full requirements are in the sale card above.

  3. Sale day

    There is no fixed calendar. Bidding runs on RealAuction; check posted sale dates, registration status, and bidding windows there.

  4. Confirm with the office

    If the list, platform, and notice disagree, use County Treasurer as the source to confirm which parcels are actually offered.

Before you bid in Adams County

  1. Start with the live sale list

    Pull the current advertised parcels from Tax lien sale notice and delinquent real estate tax list (tax year 2024). Lists can change before the sale, so recheck the county source before you price a parcel.

  2. Confirm registration and deposit

    What sells is a certificate of option for treasurer's deed, not the parcel outright. The treasurer may only accept bids above the combined amount owed to the lawful holder plus the treasurer's fees and costs. County officials, county employees acting in their individual capacity, and their immediate family members may not bid. Payment is by cash, cashier's check, bank check, or electronic funds transfer subject to the treasurer's bidding rules. Any overbid goes to junior lienors who filed a notice of intent to redeem and then to the property owner. Confirm the notice, the bidding rules, and the auction venue with the county treasurer.

  3. Check the state rules that change the bid

    Read the Colorado due-diligence checklist before bidding. Redemption, liens that survive a tax deed, title cleanup, and payment deadlines can change what a parcel is worth. Which liens survive is state law, so read what survives a tax deed in Colorado before you price the title work.

  4. Set a walk-away number

    Work out what the parcel is actually worth with the rural land value estimator, then turn it into a ceiling with the tax deed max-bid calculator.

Over-the-counter (leftover) purchases

Liens that draw no bid are struck off to the county and the treasurer issues the county a certificate of purchase. The county may then assign, sell, or transfer those certificates in the manner, at the times, and on the terms set by resolution of the board of county commissioners, which is how county-held liens are sold between annual auctions. A certificate on property owing more than ten thousand dollars in taxes needs the property tax administrator's approval after published notice. Whether a county maintains a published county-held list, and on what terms, varies. Contact the county treasurer.

New to this path? Read how over-the-counter certificates work. Every state has its own name for what goes unsold, so check what Colorado calls its leftover tax-sale inventory.

Use the arrow keys to switch between these sections.

County offices

Tax Collector (runs the certificate sale)

Adams County Treasurer & Public Trustee

720.523.6160 (tax lien sales); 303.659.2120 (Treasurer main)

4430 South Adams County Parkway, Brighton, Colorado 80601

Official website

County notes

  • Adams County runs its lien sale entirely online through Realauction's RealTaxLien platform at adams.coloradotaxsale.com; the site's own page title and footer identify Realauction.com as the operator.
  • The Treasurer's sale notice is signed by Alexander Villagran, Adams County Treasurer & Public Trustee, and is published in the Northglenn-Thornton Sentinel (three insertions in September and early October for the 2025 sale).
  • The Treasurer's separate tax lien sales phone line is 720.523.6160; the general Treasurer & Public Trustee number is 303.659.2120 (toll free 800.824.7842).
  • The auction site requires a login for bidding rules and preview documents, so registration and rule detail come from the county's published notice.

Colorado rules

Max interest rate
14% per year, set by statute (bidding is on price)
Minimum return
No statutory minimum return; what you earn is set by the price at the sale
Redemption
Redemption may be made at any time before a treasurer's deed is executed, so the practical window runs well past the three-year mark and through the Article 11.5 auction process. The treasurer must hold that public auction between 110 and 125 calendar days after the known interested party notice is first published or mailed, which gives owners and junior lienors a further defined period to pay. A separate rule lets an owner who was under a legal disability when the deed was executed redeem within nine years of the deed being recorded, at 15 percent per year plus the present value of any improvements.
Deed deposit
The treasurer may require the applying lawful holder to post a deposit covering the recording fee plus the actual and reasonable cost of administering the auction, and all Article 11.5 fees and costs are chargeable as additional amounts owing under the tax lien. For bidders, the treasurer accepts cash, cashier's check, bank check, or electronic funds transfer subject to the treasurer's bidding rules. The statute sets no fixed bidder deposit percentage, so the deposit terms come from county bidding rules.
Surplus proceeds
Any overbid goes first to junior lienors in order of recording priority, measured as of the recording date of the application for public auction, who filed a notice of intent to redeem and whose liens are unredeemed, up to each lien's unpaid amount plus fees and costs. Whatever remains is paid to the property owner. The treasurer must post a public notice about these funds and mail the owner a notice within thirty calendar days of the auction. Unclaimed remaining overbids sit in escrow for six months without interest, then transfer to the state administrator under the Revised Uniform Unclaimed Property Act. An agreement to pay someone to recover an owner's overbid is unenforceable, and inducing one is a class 2 misdemeanor.
Governing statute
C.R.S. Title 39, Article 11

A tax deed does not convey marketable title. Most buyers file a quiet title action before they can resell or insure the property. See the due diligence guide.

See the full Coloradorules and every county →

Frequently asked questions

Does Adams County, Colorado sell tax liens or tax deeds?

Adams County follows Colorado's tax lien state system.

When is the Adams County tax certificate sale?

Late October, held online over roughly two weeks. The county Tax Lien Sale page states: "The Adams County Tax Lien Sale is an internet tax sale. The 2025 Live Tax Lien Sale will be held October 20 to 31, 2025. This is for 2024 taxes payable in 2025." The published sale notice set registration for October 13 through October 24, 2025, with bidding open October 20 through October 31, 2025. As of late July 2026 the county had not yet posted dates for the next sale; the page says information for the current year's sale becomes available in mid-October. Registration and bidding happen on the county's online platform. Always confirm the exact date with the County Treasurer before the sale.

How often does Adams County hold tax deed sales?

Adams County holds its tax deed sale on application. There is no fixed calendar. Each sale is scheduled and advertised in advance, so check the county's tax deed calendar for the next posted date.

I own a property in this sale. Can I stop it?

Often yes, by paying the overdue taxes, interest, and costs before the deadline. Colorado's redemption rule: 3 years from the tax lien sale before the certificate holder can apply for the deed auction. Call the County Treasurer as early as possible for your exact payoff and options; deadlines are strict. Free help: lawhelp.org lists legal aid programs, and consumerfinance.gov lists HUD-approved housing counselors.

Where can I find the Adams County tax sale list?

Adams County posts its tax sale list at adamscountyco.gov. Lists go up ahead of each sale and keep changing until the sale date, so confirm every parcel against the county's legal advertisement before you bid.

Verified Jul 30, 2026 against official county and state sources.

Tax Sale Atlas publishes educational information about public tax sale processes. This is not legal, financial, or investment advice. Rules, dates, and fees change; confirm with the county office before you bid.

More Colorado counties

Browse all 64 Colorado counties

Compare sale calendars, platforms, and rules across the state, or read the guides before you bid.

Colorado tax salesDue diligence guide
Call Adams County Treasurer & Public TrusteeOpen auction