Montana tax sale properties, straight from county records. Auction dates and opening bids can change at the county. Check the county link on a listing before you bid.
Montana runs 2 kinds of tax sale, and the county and the sale decide which one a property is sold under:
Tax Lien Certificate (Mont. Code 15-18-111 (time for redemption); redemption: 3 yrs); Tax Deed (Mont. Code 15-18-219, 15-18-220; redemption: no redemption).
Redemption Period
Varies by sale
The county attaches a tax lien, which it can assign to an investor. The owner has until the first working day in August three years after the lien attached to redeem, or two years for a vacant subdivided lot with special-improvement-district arrears (Mont. Code 15-18-111). The lien holder then applies for a tax deed. If the property is a home its owner lives in, the treasurer must instead auction the tax deed, with an opening bid that includes half the assessed value; the lien holder is repaid and the surplus goes to the owner (15-18-219 to 15-18-221).
Avg Property Tax Rate
0.84%
Near the national average (1.1%).
Homestead Rules
Special Rules Apply
No general homestead exemption.
Words used on this page
Redemption period
A window after the sale when the old owner can pay up and take the property back.
Homestead exemption
A tax break on an owner's main home. It changes what the minimum bid includes.
Opening bid
Where bidding starts. It is not a price or a value. Often it is just the tax owed.
Tax lien
The county sells the unpaid tax debt, not the property. You collect interest, or later foreclose.
Before you bid in Montana
What can survive the sale and become yours
IRS federal tax liens
Other things to check
Montana is a lien state: counties assign tax liens that earn 10% a year plus a 2% penalty (Mont.
Code 15-16-102), with about three years to redeem.
On owner-occupied homes the lien holder does not get the house; the county auctions the tax deed and the holder is repaid.
Tax-deed auctions take a deposit of 5% of the bid or $200, whichever is greater, with full payment within 24 hours (15-18-220).
Check for mineral/water rights.
How we rate these
Every listing says one of four things. Next to it is how many facts we hold
for it, and what that much evidence is good enough for.
Worth a look
We hold the four basics (what is being sold, when, for how much, and what the property is) and nothing we hold argues against it. A claim about our record, not a promise about the property.
Needs review
We hold the basics, but a named finding wants a human first: a possible lien under the owner's name, a flood or environmental record, no mapped public road, a property check that fired, an opening bid at or above the value we hold for the parcel, or a sale the county reports as postponed.
Screened out
We hold positive evidence of a problem: recorded debt or an IRS lien that survives the sale, a lot too small to be a real parcel, a sale the county reports as over, or a sale date already past. The card names it.
Not enough data yet
One of the four basics is missing. This is not a bad rating: missing data can never produce a negative verdict.
N of 12 facts on file
How many of the 12 facts we track for this parcel we actually hold: sale kind, auction date, entry price, property class, value, lot size, living area, legal description, road access, title search, condition, sale terms. The same count on the board, the deal page and in Flexy. Hover the bar on any card to see which are still missing.
One number cannot say both how good a parcel looks and how much we actually know
about it, and a low number reads as a verdict. So we do not print one.
“Not enough data yet” is not a judgement about the property.
Montana runs more than one kind of tax sale: Tax Lien Certificate sales (Mont. Code 15-18-111 (time for redemption)) and Tax Deed sales (Mont. Code 15-18-219, 15-18-220). The county and the sale decide which one a property is sold under. The county attaches a tax lien, which it can assign to an investor. The owner has until the first working day in August three years after the lien attached to redeem, or two years for a vacant subdivided lot with special-improvement-district arrears (Mont. Code 15-18-111). The lien holder then applies for a tax deed. If the property is a home its owner lives in, the treasurer must instead auction the tax deed, with an opening bid that includes half the assessed value; the lien holder is repaid and the surplus goes to the owner (15-18-219 to 15-18-221).
It depends on the kind of sale. Tax Lien Certificate: 3 yrs; Tax Deed: no redemption.
DeedFlex aggregates Montana tax sale listings from county auction platforms and gives each property a plain-English verdict: Worth a look, Needs review, Screened out, or Not enough data yet. Next to it is how far the research has got on it. Start with Pro ($59/mo, flat) to browse all available Montana properties with full deal analysis.
Key risks include: IRS federal tax liens. Montana is a lien state: counties assign tax liens that earn 10% a year plus a 2% penalty (Mont. Code 15-16-102), with about three years to redeem. On owner-occupied homes the lien holder does not get the house; the county auctions the tax deed and the holder is repaid. Tax-deed auctions take a deposit of 5% of the bid or $200, whichever is greater, with full payment within 24 hours (15-18-220). Check for mineral/water rights.
Opening bids vary widely by county and property. Montana has an average property tax rate of 0.84%, which influences opening bid amounts. DeedFlex shows the opening bid for every listed property. Where we hold a market value we can stand behind, we show it; where we do not, we say so rather than print a number we cannot support.
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