# Find properties that are in Cook County's annual tax sale The Cook County Treasurer is in charge of collecting property taxes from all owners of taxable properties. When owners don't pay their property taxes, the taxes are "sold" in the annual tax sale, which occurs at least nine months after the second installment is due. (This is separate from the scavenger sale, which is for properties that have three or more years of unpaid taxes.) Chicago Cityscape incorporates the treasurer's list of properties and makes it easy to find these properties. ## Tax sale dates The last annual tax sale was held December 10, 2024. Results are available in Property Finder as of February 4, 2025. No scavenger sale is scheduled; these will be held at the discretion of the Cook County Board of Commissioners. ## How the annual tax sale works People who want to participate in the tax sale – and become "tax buyers" – must register with the Treasurer's office during the annual registration period and pay a deposit. When the bidding period opens, participants submit a bid for each property they want by entering its PIN and their bid price. A bid is not a cash offer but the interest rate that they will charge the property owner. The participant who bids the lowest interest rate will win each property (which must be offered between 0% and 9%). Once they are determined to be the winner, the participant will pay the taxes on that property (plus interest, penalties, and fees) to the Treasurer. The participant will then attempt to collect the debt (plus the interest that they submitted in the bid) from the property owner. The participant's interest rate compounds severely; [read this WBEZ article to learn how that works](https://www.wbez.org/stories/cook-county-makes-millions-by-selling-property-tax-debt-but-at-what-cost/69272607-aa91-4d1b-abfa-1aef57ea0a33). Owners of residential property have 30 months to pay back the tax buyer while owners of non-residential property have six months to pay back the tax buyer; these are known as "redemption periods". If the redemption period expires and the tax buyer has not been paid back, then the tax buyer can proceed to acquire the property. Interested bidders must register; bidders should also review the "sale in error" list of properties as prior to bidding as they will not be able to claim there was an error if a property already had a previously known "sale in error". ## Use Property Finder to locate tax sale properties Property Finder is a premier feature on Chicago Cityscape that provides members with robust and exclusive filters to sift through nearly two million properties in Cook County. Property Finder is available in Property Report and with more filters in Place Report. The Property Report method is best if you only want to analyze properties within 1 mile of a given address, and the Place Report method is best if you want to find properties in a large area. ### 1. Property Report method It's possible to locate tax sale properties at and within one mile of a given address in Cook County. 1. [Look up the address](/address.php) to get the Property Report. 2. In the Table of Contents, click on "Property Finder". The page will jump down to that section. 3. Click the "Load Property Finder" button, after which a map, table, and filters section appears. 4. Look under "Special filters" and select the radio button called "[latest year] tax sale" (see *screenshot 1* below). 5. Click the "Apply filters" button, after which the map and table will reload to show relevant properties.  *Screenshot 1 showing the tax sale filters in Property Finder* Notice that the resulting properties in the data table have a label titled "[latest year] tax sale". The number next to this label indicates the total amount of unpaid taxes and interest due to the Treasurer. This is the amount that you would have to pay to the Treasurer to buy the taxes. #### Definitions In each PIN-based Property Report, the report checks if the PIN has appeared in an annual tax or scavenger sale. Look in the Property & Ownership Info section of the Property Report. Then, in the taxes history table in the same Property & Ownership Info section there is a column called "Delinquency" which may add more details about the annual tax sales. You'll find one of the following values in that column: - No Tax Sale. The property was not involved in the annual tax sale that year. - Tax Sale Has Not Occurred. The annual tax sale that can involve this property has not yet occurred. As of April 5, 2023, the most recent annual tax sale that occurred involved properties that had a delinquency for the 2020 tax year or earlier (this sale was conducted in November 2022). The next tax sale is for 2021 taxes, which will be sold starting January 9, 2024. - Taxes Forfeited - Taxes Forfeited and Redeemed. Extremely uncommon value. - Tax Sale Vacated - Taxes Paid By Tax Buyer - Taxes Sold - Taxes Sold and Redeemed. Extremely uncommon value. - Not Available. Information about this property and tax sales was not provided. ### 2. Place Report method 1. [Look up the Place](/maps/index.php) to get the Place Report. You can also [draw a Personal Place](/draw.php). 2. Click on the "Property Finder" button. 3. Click the "Load Property Finder" button, after which a map, table, and filters section appears. 4. Look under "Special filters" and select the radio button called "[latest year] tax sale" (see *screenshot 1* above). 5. Click the "Apply filters" button, after which the map and table will reload to show relevant properties. Notice that the relevant properties have a label titled "[latest year] tax sale". The number next to this label indicates the total amount of unpaid taxes and interest due to the Treasurer. This is the amount that you would have to pay to the Treasurer to buy the taxes.