What Are Tax Liens On Real Estate?


by Barry Waxler - Date: 2007-06-23 - Word Count: 441 Share This!

Taxes are a headache that everyone has to deal with and it is certainly depressing when a tax lien is put on your property. On the other side of the picture, tax liens of Real Estate present a good potential investment. What are tax liens on Real Estate?

The definition of a lien is that it is a claim against an item by another party that uses the claim as security against a loan or other obligation. The lien usually has precedence when an item is sold and can have implications in the matter of ownership. Tax liens are put on Real Estate when the owners of the property are delinquent in the payment of personal property taxes.

What the tax lien really means is that the holder of the lien must be paid from the proceeds of a sale of the property before ownership can be transferred to someone else. In many areas Tax liens are placed on Real Estate by the taxing municipality. These liens are often what are called First Liens because they take precedence over any other obligations against the property. The liens will then be sold at auction as tax lien certificates.

The tax lien certificates will require the property owner to either pay a set yield to release the lien or, if they have failed to pay the yield within an established amount of time, ownership of the property passes to the lien holder. This is appears to be an ideal win/win situation for the investor who purchases the tax lien. He will either receive a guaranteed return on his investment or a Real Estate property at an extremely discounted price.

It is impossible to give exact figures on the yield or the amount of time that the lien must be held before the possibility of default. So, the above information sounds a bit vague as to specifics. This is because the yield and the time elements are set by the individual municipality and vary widely from area to area. In this respect, the Tax Lien Certificate method of Real Estate investment does not differ from any other type of investment. A little bit of research is necessary to insure the best chance of success.

In the case of Tax Liens, the wide variety of different conditions and procedures that can exist from location to location tends to make the practice of purchasing them a local opportunity. This is not always the case and the local variations can be overcome by an organized investor who puts in the time and legwork to determine the exact conditions in the locality where he is considering the purchase of a Tax Lien.

Related Tags: real estate, home, foreclosures, foreclosure, tax, homes, taxes, irs, lien, liens

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