Live data — updated October 13, 2026
Maryland Over-the-Counter Tax Liens (2026): 178 County-Held Listings
Quick answer: Maryland counties hold 178 tax sale certificates on properties that drew no private bid at the tax sale. The county may sell and assign these certificates (Md. Code, Tax–Property §14-825) at a price and by a process it sets. You are buying the unpaid tax debt, not the property.
What you are buying. A certificate against the parcel's unpaid taxes. The owner keeps the property and owes you the debt plus statutory interest.
If they redeem — and most do — you are repaid with interest and never own the parcel. Maryland's redemption window runs until a court judgment.
If they do not redeem, the certificate is your route to a deed. Counties sell tax sale certificates at an annual auction (Md. Tax-Property 14-808 et seq.). The owner can redeem until a court forecloses the right of redemption, so there is no fixed end date (14-827). You can file to foreclose 6 months after the sale, or 9 months for an owner-occupied home, and only after sending two required notices; you must file within 2 years or the certificate is void (14-820, 14-833). That is a separate legal process with its own costs and timeline, and it is where most of the real work sits.
So treat the interest as the base case and ownership as the exception. Underwrite the parcel anyway: a certificate on something worthless is only worth what the owner chooses to pay.
Maryland caveat. No fixed end date: redemption lasts until the court's foreclosure judgment. The earliest you can file is 6 months after the sale (9 months for an owner-occupied home).
How Maryland handles these. A property that draws no private bid at the tax sale is bought in by the county (Md. Code, Tax–Property §14-824). The county may later sell and assign that certificate of sale, or foreclose and sell the property itself (§14-825). The statute sets no price and no procedure for the assignment, so each county decides whether and how it sells them; ask the county's tax sale office.
Ask for it by the county's name, not ours. "OTC" is investor shorthand — call a county asking for their OTC list and you may be told they have none, because that is not what it is called on their side of the desk.
Elsewhere the same inventory turns up as county-held property, leftover tax deeds, post-auction sales, or land-bank property — and land-bank stock is worth a second look, because once a parcel has been transferred to a land bank the county no longer owns it and is no longer the seller. The question that cuts through all of it, asked of the treasurer or the assessor: what happens to the properties that do not sell at the auction? If the first person says nothing is left, ask a second.
The same due diligence as auction buying applies, and the best time to look is right after a sale has run and the county has moved what did not sell.
See the full Maryland investor guide and the live Maryland auction calendar.
Where the inventory is
| County | County-held listings |
|---|---|
| Allegany | 170 |
| Worcester | 7 |
| Queen Anne's | 1 |
Counts update daily.
Frequently asked questions
What does over-the-counter (OTC) mean in tax sales?
Depending on the state, what is sold over the counter is either the property or the county's tax lien certificate. When nothing bids at the county tax sale, the county (or the state) keeps it ("struck off") and sells it afterward. In some states that is at a set minimum — back taxes plus costs — to the first qualified applicant, with no auction. Many work differently: Texas re-offers struck-off property at a public resale or by private sale (Tex. Tax Code 34.05), Alabama's State-held parcels are sold by the Department of Revenue on a price quote, Michigan and Minnesota at a county-set or appraised price, and Arkansas, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Missouri and West Virginia by bid or offer. Each state page says which.
Why would a property go unsold at auction?
Mostly obscurity, not defects: small rural counties get few bidders, some lists never circulate, and low-value parcels aren't worth a professional's trip. Plenty are genuinely rough — the same title and condition research applies as at auction.
Are OTC properties cheaper than auction properties?
There is no statutory price for an assigned county certificate: the county sets it, and some counties do not assign them at all.
How do I buy an OTC property in Maryland?
Ask the county's tax sale office whether it assigns county-held certificates of sale and on what terms (Md. Code, Tax-Property 14-825). If it does, you take an assignment of the certificate; if not, the county keeps it and may foreclose and sell the property itself.