Selling land with back taxes in Louisiana: tax liens, adjudication, and redemption.

The short answer

Yes, you can sell land that has back taxes in Louisiana. The unpaid taxes, interest and penalties are paid out of the sale proceeds at closing, the same way a mortgage payoff is. The Louisiana Constitution says there is no forfeiture of property for unpaid taxes. The taxes become a lien on the land, and you still own it. You can still sell it until a sale to enforce the lien actually happens. Under the rules in force since January 1, 2026, no enforcement can begin until at least three years after a tax lien certificate is recorded.

What has to be paid, and to whom, depends on how far the delinquency has gone. If the taxes are simply overdue, you pay the parish tax collector. If the parish has auctioned a tax lien (the system since 2026), you pay a "termination price" through the tax collector. If the land went to a tax sale or was adjudicated to the parish before 2026, the older redemption rules still apply. All three situations can usually be cleared at closing, once a title examination shows exactly which one you have.

In Mississippi the clock is shorter. After a county tax sale, the owner has two years from the date of sale to redeem through the chancery clerk.

First things first

Can you sell land that has back taxes?

Yes. A buyer doesn’t need the taxes paid before signing a purchase agreement, and in most sales they aren’t paid ahead of time. At closing, the title company pays the tax collector out of the proceeds, records the release, and you receive what’s left. The taxes come out of your side of the closing statement, just like a mortgage payoff.

What changes the picture is how far the delinquency has gone. A title search puts the land in one of three situations:

The 2026 rewrite

What changed in Louisiana’s tax sale law in 2026?

For years, Louisiana parishes held “tax sales” in which a buyer paid the overdue taxes and received tax sale title to the property. On December 7, 2024, voters approved a constitutional amendment (Acts 2024, No. 409), and the Legislature passed a rewrite of the tax sale statutes (Acts 2024, No. 774, amended by Acts 2025, No. 411). Both took effect January 1, 2026.

Under the new Article VII, §25, unpaid property taxes are a lien and privilege on the land, and “there shall be no forfeiture of property for nonpayment of taxes.” Interest is capped at 1% a month, not compounded, and the penalty at 5%. What the parish auctions now is the tax lien, not the land. As the St. Tammany Sheriff’s Office puts it, the auction “is not for the structure or land itself.”

The bidding works differently too. Investors bid the interest rate down from 1% a month in tenths of a percent, to a floor of 0.7%. If nobody bids, the lien certificate goes to the parish (or other taxing body) at 1% a month (R.S. 47:2154). Either way, the certificate is recorded in the parish mortgage records within 30 days.

The clock

How long do you have to pay off a Louisiana tax lien?

Longer than most owners fear, but every step adds cost. Here’s the sequence under the statutes in force since 2026:

1. Notice of delinquency

   By the first Monday of February, or as soon after as possible, the tax collector sends certified-mail notice of the prior year's unpaid taxes. You have 20 days to pay before the lien goes to auction (R.S. 47:2153). Delinquent lists are then published in the parish's official journal.

2. Tax lien auction

   The lien is auctioned and a tax lien certificate is recorded. Paying before the auction keeps it off the list. Tangipahoa's Sheriff tells owners they can pay "until the day before the auction."

3. Pay the termination price at any time

   The lien amount, interest at the winning rate, a 5% penalty and costs, paid through the tax collector. The lienholder can add up to $500 for notice costs (R.S. 47:2156).

4. Post-auction notice, then a lawsuit

   The lienholder must send notice six months to a year before suing. The suit can't be filed until three years after the certificate was recorded or six months after that notice, whichever is later (R.S. 47:2266.1). Attorney fees, capped at the greater of 25% or $2,500 unless the court finds good cause, get added.

5. Last chances before a judicial sale

   For 30 days after the last defendant is served, anyone can pay the termination price to the tax collector. After that, an interested party can ask the court to set the price and pay it any time before the judicial sale. The constitution requires a procedure for claiming any excess sale proceeds.

When the parish holds the lien because nobody bid, the path is different but the floor is the same. A public sale to enforce a parish-held lien can’t happen until three years after the certificate is recorded (R.S. 47:2201). The parish must send notice first, and you can pay the amount owed any time before the sale (R.S. 47:2206).

The three-year window is a floor, not a deadline. You keep ownership until the enforcement sale, but each stage makes the payoff more expensive.

Older sales

What if the land went to a tax sale before 2026?

Tax sales held before January 1, 2026 are still redeemed under the law in effect on December 31, 2025 (R.S. 47:2241.1). Under that law, property sold at a tax sale could be redeemed for three years after the tax sale was recorded, by paying the price, costs, a 5% penalty and interest of 1% a month (as summarized in the Legislature’s 2024 digest). A 2023, 2024 or 2025 tax sale may still be inside its window today. Check the recording date, not the auction date.

After the window closes, the tax-sale buyer typically files a suit to quiet the tax title or a monition proceeding to confirm the sale. At that point a former owner can challenge the sale only on a short list of defined grounds, such as proof the taxes were paid before the sale (R.S. 47:2286). The old constitution generally required an annulment suit within six months after the owner was served with notice of the sale. If you’re near or past three years, talk to a Louisiana attorney now. Redemptive periods are peremptive by statute (R.S. 47:2241): once they run, they’re over.

Adjudication

What is adjudicated property in Louisiana?

Under the old system, when nobody bid at a tax sale, tax sale title was adjudicated to the parish or city (R.S. 47:2122). Family land can sit in this state for decades while the tax bill keeps arriving in a dead relative’s name.

Adjudicated doesn’t mean gone. The parish holds tax sale title, but the law sets rules before it can let the land go:

• It can still be redeemed. After the redemptive period, any person may redeem in the tax debtor’s name until the parish sells or donates the land and the notice period runs out (Hatfield v. Bossier Parish Police Jury, 2019, applying R.S. 47:2246).
• A parish sale requires notice. After a sale or donation, each interested party gets notice and then has six months to redeem or go to court, or 60 days if the tax sale certificate was recorded more than five years earlier (R.S. 47:2206).
• Sales are public and advertised. Parishes sell or donate adjudicated land by ordinance, and a public sale is advertised twice in the official journal. A private buyer can start the process by depositing the sale costs (R.S. 47:2203).
• The parish can convert it. Since 2026 a parish may turn adjudicated title into a tax lien certificate held in its own name and enforce it under the new procedure (R.S. 47:2201).

Very old adjudications to the State itself (tax years 1880 through 1973) are redeemed through the state land office instead.

Families

What happens to the owner, and to heirs?

Notices go to the “tax debtor,” the person listed on the tax roll. When that person has died, the certified letter can land at an empty house, and heirs often learn about a lien or adjudication only when a title search turns it up. In our experience, that’s how most families find out.

Two things help heirs. First, payment isn’t limited to the record owner: during the enforcement suit’s 30-day window, the statute lets “any person” pay the termination price, and adjudicated property can be redeemed in the tax debtor’s name. Second, the taxes don’t have to be paid before the family is ready to sell. A sale can be agreed while the succession runs, and the taxes are paid from the proceeds when it closes.

Paying the taxes doesn’t make you the owner, though. Title still passes by succession, and a long-unpaid tax bill is often one piece of a larger title problem.

At the closing table

How does a buyer clear back taxes or a tax lien?

The order is the same for any situation:

1. Title examination. It shows which situation applies, who holds any certificate, and what was recorded and when.
2. A written payoff. The tax collector issues a dated figure for the taxes, the termination price or the redemption amount.
3. Payment at closing. The title company pays from the proceeds through the tax collector and records the cancellation.
4. Court work only where needed. A pre-2026 tax title held by a third party, or a parish sale already in progress, may need an attorney and more time.

When the title is otherwise clean, these closings typically take one to three weeks. When there’s a succession or a contested tax title, the timeline belongs to the paperwork. When we’re the buyer, the back taxes come out of the price at closing and nobody fronts them. Harry will tell you plainly if paying the taxes yourself and listing the land retail would net you more.

Local notes

Who collects property taxes in St. Tammany, Tangipahoa and Washington Parishes?

In every Louisiana parish except Orleans, the sheriff is the ex officio collector of property taxes (La. Const. art. V, §27). That makes the sheriff’s property tax office the place for payoffs, redemptions and termination prices.

• St. Tammany: The Sheriff’s Property Tax Division collects for the unincorporated parish and, by contract, for Slidell, Mandeville, Covington, Abita Springs, Pearl River and Madisonville (985-809-8217). Its 2026 tax lien auction ran online through SRI’s zeusauction.com platform. The Office of State Lands has also held public sales of State-adjudicated St. Tammany parcels at the parish Justice Center.
• Tangipahoa: The Sheriff’s tax collector is at 313 E. Oak Street in Amite. Taxes are delinquent after December 31. Tangipahoa Parish Government has used CivicSource, an online platform, to sell adjudicated property.
• Washington: The Sheriff’s Office takes property tax payments at its Franklinton (1002 Main St., 985-839-3434) and Bogalusa (302 Mississippi Ave.) offices and online. Ask the property tax office directly for auction listings and lien payoffs.

Across the line

How does a Mississippi tax sale redemption work?

Mississippi still sells at county tax sales, and the window is shorter. The owner, or anyone interested in the land, may redeem “at any time within two (2) years after the day of sale” through the chancery clerk (Miss. Code §27-45-3). Before the period expires, the clerk must give the record owner notice (§27-43-1), and Mississippi courts have voided tax sales where that notice fell short. Once the two years have run, the clerk can issue a tax deed to the buyer (§27-45-23).

Each year, chancery clerks send the Secretary of State a list of land where the taxes went unpaid and the former owner didn’t redeem by the deadline. That land becomes tax-forfeited land sold by the Secretary of State’s Public Lands Division. When a parcel is sold back to the prior owner, the price is the highest of 25% of market value, the back taxes plus fees, or the offer. For family land, start with selling inherited land in Mississippi.

Questions & answers

Asked by nearly every family we work with.

Will the parish take my land if I'm behind on property taxes?

Not right away. Louisiana's constitution bars forfeiture for unpaid taxes, and under the 2026 system the parish auctions a lien, not the land. An investor holding the lien can't sue to enforce it until at least three years after the certificate is recorded and at least six months after sending you notice. When the parish holds the lien, it also has to wait three years and send notice before any public sale. Until that sale happens, the land is still yours to pay off or to sell.

Can I just pay the taxes and keep the land?

Yes. Before the auction, you pay the tax collector what's owed. After a lien has been auctioned, you pay the termination price through the tax collector: the lien amount, interest, the 5% penalty and allowed costs. Ask the tax collector for a written payoff figure with a date on it, because interest keeps running.

My parents' land was adjudicated to the parish years ago. Is it gone?

Not necessarily. Adjudicated land can often still be redeemed in the tax debtor's name. That right generally ends only once the parish sells or donates the land and the required notice period runs out: six months after notice, or 60 days if the tax sale certificate was recorded more than five years earlier. Have someone check the parish records before you assume the land is lost.

If I pay the back taxes on family land, does that make it mine?

No. Paying the taxes keeps the land from being lost, but it doesn't move the title. If the owner has died, ownership passes by succession. Keep your receipts, and ask the succession attorney whether the family should account for what you paid when the land is sold.

Can heirs sell land with back taxes before the succession is finished?

You can agree on a sale and sign a purchase agreement. The closing waits for the Judgment of Possession, and the back taxes are paid from the proceeds at that closing. What matters in the meantime is keeping a tax lien from getting close to enforcement while the succession runs.

What does it cost to pay off a Louisiana tax lien?

It's built from defined pieces: the amount the lien sold for, interest at the winning bid rate (no more than 1% a month), a 5% penalty, collection costs, and up to $500 of the lienholder's notice costs. If a lawsuit has been filed, attorney fees and court costs are added. That's why paying early is so much cheaper than paying late.

I own land in Mississippi with unpaid taxes. How long do I have?

If the land has gone through a county tax sale, you have two years from the date of the sale to redeem through the chancery clerk. After that, the clerk can issue a tax deed to the buyer. Land that isn't redeemed can also end up as state tax-forfeited land, sold by the Secretary of State.

Sources: Louisiana Constitution Art. VII, §25 (as amended by Acts 2024, No. 409, eff. Jan. 1, 2026) and Art. V, §27; La. R.S. 47:2122, 47:2153, 47:2154, 47:2156, 47:2201, 47:2203, 47:2206, 47:2241, 47:2241.1, 47:2266.1 and 47:2286 (Acts 2024, No. 774 and Acts 2025, No. 411); the Legislature's 2024 digest summarizing the pre-2026 constitutional redemption rule; Hatfield v. Bossier Parish Police Jury, 267 So. 3d 1224 (La. App. 2 Cir. 2019); the St. Tammany Parish Sheriff's Office, Tangipahoa Parish Sheriff's Office and Washington Parish Sheriff's Office; Miss. Code §§27-43-1, 27-45-3 and 27-45-23 as applied in a 2020 Mississippi Attorney General opinion, City of Horn Lake v. Sass Muni-V, LLC, 268 So. 3d 514 (Miss. 2018) and Foreman v. DHP1, LLC (Miss. 2025); and the Mississippi Secretary of State. General information, not legal advice. Tax lien and redemption deadlines are strict, so confirm your specifics with a Louisiana or Mississippi attorney. Published October 2026.