Virginia tax sales: two routes, two kinds of title

A note for buyers who bid on Virginia tax sale property. Statute citations are to the Code of Virginia, Title 58.1, Chapter 39, Article 4.

Virginia does not sell tax lien certificates. A county, city or town collects its delinquent real estate taxes by selling the property itself, and the Code gives it two ways to do that. Most parcels go through a lawsuit in circuit court. A narrow set of low-value parcels can be sold by the treasurer with no lawsuit at all. The route decides what the buyer ends up holding, so it is the first thing to check on any Virginia listing.

Route one: the circuit court sale

Under Va. Code 58.1-3965, real estate can be sold once its taxes are still delinquent on December 31 following the second anniversary of the date they came due. Some parcels qualify sooner, such as property with a structure condemned by the local building official or property declared blighted. At least 30 days before suit is filed, the local officer who collects taxes, usually the treasurer, must send notice to the owner's last known address and, if it differs, to the property address. That officer must also publish the list of parcels at least once in a local newspaper at least 30 days before the suit begins.

The locality's attorney then files suit in circuit court. The court may appoint a special commissioner to sell the parcel at public auction and sign the deed, and it may choose the attorney the locality hired to bring the suit (58.1-3969). The hammer does not end the matter: the court has to confirm the sale (58.1-3967).

Three things follow from that structure:

Article 4 sets no statewide deposit or minimum bid, and the court must approve each sale, so read the advertised terms of the sale you plan to attend.
The owner can redeem at any time before the date set for the sale under 58.1-3974, and not after it. Virginia has no redemption period after the sale.
A party who was served only by publication can petition for a rehearing, for good cause, within 90 days after the order confirming the sale is entered.

The title is the strong part of this route. Section 58.1-3967 says the buyer takes free of the claims of creditors, including the beneficiaries of a deed of trust or mortgage, provided the creditor was made a party defendant. Easements recorded before the sale date are not affected. That proviso is where the risk sits, so the work before bidding is reading the court file: the list of defendants, the returns of service, and whether the deed of trust trustees were named along with the lender.

If the sale brings in more than the taxes, costs and liens, the former owner or the owner's heirs can claim the surplus. On this route, money nobody claims within two years after the sale is confirmed goes to the locality.

Route two: the treasurer's sale of small parcels

Va. Code 58.1-3975 lets the treasurer auction certain small parcels with no lawsuit and no court confirmation. The taxes must be delinquent on December 31 following the third anniversary of the due date, and the parcel must fit one of three value tiers:

assessed at $15,000 or less;
assessed above $15,000 up to $30,000, with no recorded mortgage or deed of trust lien and one of the six conditions the statute lists; or
assessed above $30,000 up to $40,000, with no recorded mortgage or deed of trust lien, unimproved, no larger than half an acre, and inside an urban redevelopment or revitalization zone the locality has designated.

The buyer receives a special warranty deed. The sale clears the locality's tax lien, and it clears an earlier recorded lien only if the treasurer gave that lienholder written notice at least 30 days before the sale, at its address of record and through its registered agent, if any. Easements and other rights of record recorded before the sale stay in place.

That last rule bites hardest on the lowest tier. The two higher tiers require that no mortgage or deed of trust be recorded against the parcel, but the $15,000-and-under tier has no such condition. A cheap lot sold this way can still carry a recorded deed of trust if the lender never got its 30-day notice. Ask the treasurer for the notice file before you bid.

Federal tax liens on either route

A recorded federal tax lien follows federal rules in 26 U.S.C. 7425. On the court route, if the United States was not joined as a party and notice of its lien was on file when the suit began, the sale is made subject to that lien. On the treasurer's route, a federal tax lien whose notice was filed more than 30 days before the sale survives unless the IRS consented to the sale or was sent written notice of it, by registered or certified mail or personal service, at least 25 days before the sale. If a treasurer's sale clears a federal tax lien, or a court sale clears one where the United States was a party, the IRS can still redeem the property within 120 days after the sale. If the United States was not a party and its lien notice was not on file when the suit began, Virginia law decides whether the lien is cleared, and the government can claim the sale proceeds before they are paid out.

A short checklist before bidding

Find out which route the sale uses. A circuit court case and a special commissioner mean route one; a treasurer's auction under 58.1-3975 means route two.
On a court sale, compare the defendants and returns of service with a current title search.
On a treasurer's sale, ask for proof of each 30-day lienholder notice.
Search the federal lien index at the circuit court clerk's office under the owner's name, because federal lien notices are indexed by name, not by parcel.
Check whether the parcel sits in an independent city. Virginia has 38 of them, each outside any county, so a city parcel is handled by the city's own tax office, usually its treasurer, not by the surrounding county.

The sourced Virginia rules behind this note are on the Tax Sale Atlas Virginia tax sale page. For the full process see the step-by-step guide to how Virginia tax sales work, the Virginia redemption rules, and the Virginia county and city pages with each locality's contacts.

General information for investors, not legal or financial advice. Statutes change, so read the current text at law.lis.virginia.gov and confirm the terms of any sale with the special commissioner or the treasurer. Published November 2026 by Tax Sale Atlas.