Over the last three years, numerous Cook County tax purchasers failed to obtain tax deeds to unredeemed single-family occupied homes due to the clerk of the court and the Cook County Sheriff’s failure to timely mail tax notices within the statutory time frame to owners and occupants. The clerk and sheriff’s failures prohibited courts from entering a significant number of tax deed orders because there was failure of strict compliance as required by the Property Tax Code. As a result, the courts entered orders vacating these tax sales and required Cook County  to refund the delinquent tax payments to the tax purchasers. Consequently, there are now numerous owner-occupied homes which are three or more years tax delinquent, and which are required to be sold at the next Cook County Scavenger Sale.

If you own your residence and occupy it on the date a scavenger sale occurs, there is an opportunity for you to redeem your property for less than the amount of taxes due and return your property to tax paying status by taking advantage of a rarely used statute. Section 21-260(f) of the Scavenger Act states the following:

Notwithstanding any other provision of this Section, except for owner-occupied single family residential units which are condominium units, cooperative units or dwellings, the amount required to be paid for redemption shall also include an amount equal to all delinquent taxes on the property which taxes were delinquent at the time of sale.

In simple terms, this means that if you own and occupy a tax delinquent property at the time of a scavenger sale where your property is sold, you only have to pay the tax purchaser’s bid amount, plus applicable interest and fees, to legally redeem your property. For example, let us assume your property is four years tax delinquent for the years 2013- 2016, and the total amount of delinquent taxes you owe is $25,000. Since there are more than three years of tax delinquencies, the Cook County must offer your property for sale at its next scavenger sale. Unlike annual tax sales, the scavenger sale is a live auction where buyers call out their bids for each property. The minimum bid for tax purchasers is $250 for a property. The successful buyer pays the county their successful bid amount and receives a Certificate of Purchase. Let us further assume that your owner-occupied property is sold for $1,000 even though you owe $25,000 in delinquent taxes. The above law allows you to redeem your property for the $1,000 plus statutory interest and fees. This amount is far less than the $25,000 in taxes that you technically owe. Once you redeem the property, the 2013-216 taxes remain extinguished, and your property is no longer tax delinquent for those years

County clerk employees will generally assist you in making this type of redemption. However, Carter Legal Group is here to help, and we can assist you in taking advantage of this little-known nuance in the law.