Rockdale County, GA tax sales
How tax lien certificate and tax deed sales work in Rockdale County, seat of Conyers: sale calendar, auction platform, over-the-counter lists, and the offices that run each sale.
Verified Jul 27, 2026 against official county and state sources.
New here? Read how Georgia tax sales work, the difference between a lien and a deed, and redemption periods.
How Rockdale County sells delinquent taxes
Tax certificate sale (lien)
Details are being verified for this county.
Tax deed sale
- Run by
- Rockdale County Tax Commissioner (Tisa Smart-Washington), acting as levy officer. The office publishes the sale under its own name at rockdaletaxoffice.org, its procedures document is titled "Non-Judicial Tax Sale Procedures," and that document states "The Tax Commissioner will execute a tax deed (after the sale) and will have the deed properly recorded." The August 4, 2026 sale list names Tisa Smart-Washington as the officer on every parcel row.
- Frequency
- annual
- Typical timing
- First-Tuesday sale, advertised one sale at a time rather than on a published annual calendar. The Tax Commissioner's Property Tax page states: "OUR NEXT TAX SALE IS SET FOR August 4th, 2026. Tax sale properties are published on Wednesday in the Rockdale Citizen, legal ads section, for four weeks prior to a sale. The sale begins at 10 a.m. and will be held at the J.P. Carr Community Center, 981 Taylor St., Conyers, GA, 30012." August 4, 2026 is the first Tuesday of the month, consistent with the first-Tuesday default in O.C.G.A. Title 48, Chapter 4, Article 1. Because Rockdale posts only the next date, check the Property Tax page or call 770-278-7600 for the sale after this one.
Registration and deposit
Bidder registration runs through Government Tax Solutions (GTS), the county's registration vendor. The Tax Commissioner's Property Tax page says "Bidders can sign up here" and links to the GTS Bidder Tax Sale Registration form at gtsweb.com/contact-4, where the bidder picks the county and the sale month. GTS states registration is free, that "ONLINE REGISTRATION CLOSES AT 2PM THE MONDAY PRIOR TO THE TAX SALE, UNLESS THE MONDAY PRIOR IS A HOLIDAY. REGISTRATION WILL THEN CLOSE AT 2PM THE FRIDAY BEFORE THE TAX SALE," and that a bidder who misses the online cutoff "can still register in person the day of the tax sale." Registration does not carry over: "you will have to register separately for each city/county and month." Registered bidders check in on sale day with a valid ID. The county's own procedures add "At the time of the sale, the purchaser will be required to show proof of identification, such as a driver's license," and "Payment must be made for the amount of the bid within one hour of the sale. The form of payment must be cash or a cashier's or certified check issued by a financial institution which is insured with the FDIC or FSLIC." The winning bidder also pays the Clerk of Superior Court recording fees for the tax deed.
Rockdale runs a live, in-person outcry auction. There is no online bidding platform, so no platform URL is reported. The sale is held at the J.P. Carr Community Center, 981 Taylor St., Conyers, GA 30012 at 10 a.m., not on the courthouse steps. The GTS link is a bidder registration form only, not an auction site, and GTS confirms "the tax sale is located in the city or county that you are registering to bid." County procedures: "The sale will be conducted in the manner of a public auction with the parcels sold in the order as indicated in the advertisement. Please make your bid known loud and clear or it may not be recognized." Property is sold "to the highest and best bidder," and "IF NO BIDS ARE RECEIVED, THE PROPERTY MAY BE KNOCKED OFF TO THE COUNTY." What the buyer gets is a redeemable, non-warranty tax deed: "The purchaser of the property does not take possession of the property that he/she has purchased. The current record holder and/or defendant in FiFa still maintains possession of said property and has the right to redeem the property for no less than twelve (12) months after the date of sale," and "The purchaser must wait until one (1) year and one (1) day has elapsed from the date of sale to begin the foreclosure process to bar the right of redemption at which time the purchaser may then take possession of the property." The office warns "This is a buyer beware! sale" and "We also suggest you do not purchase property sight unseen." Mobile homes do not convey with the land unless a certificate of permanent location was issued under O.C.G.A. 8-2-180 to 183.1. The purchaser is liable for future assessments and taxes, including amounts owed to any other taxing jurisdiction such as a city. The Tax Commissioner reserves the right to set a sale aside for bankruptcy, assessment errors, or procedural errors, with a full refund of payment tendered.
County offices
Tax Collector (runs the certificate sale)
Rockdale County Tax Commissioner (Office of the Tax Commissioner, Rockdale County, Georgia)
1096 West Avenue, Conyers, GA 30012 (mailing and administration address, where tax sales and delinquent tax collections are handled)
Official websiteNotes for Rockdale County
- The Property Tax page publishes three live data files, all of which fetch: TAX SALE PROPERTIES for the August 4th tax sale (an .xlsx at rockdaletaxoffice.org/uploads/file/67/8-4-26-), EXCESS FUNDS as of May 2026 (a PDF at /uploads/file/57/52026), and DELINQUENT TAX FILES as of July 2026 (at /uploads/file/68/delinquent-7-26). The file URLs are dated and get replaced each cycle, so link investors to the Property Tax page rather than to a file.
- The August 4, 2026 sale list is a genuine parcel-level spreadsheet, not a scanned notice. Columns include Owner Name, Year, Bill Number, PID, Property Type, Original Bill Amount, Sum of Fees, Paid Amount, Current Due, Levy, Pending, Payment Plan, Paid Date, Batch Status, Batch Number, Officer, and itemized Admin, Advertisement, Title, Collect, FiFa, GED, and Mail amounts plus nine late-fee columns.
- The delinquent tax file is a raw fixed-width data dump of roughly 3,485 records with no header row and no formatting. It carries parcel ID, situs description, owner name and mailing address, and packed dollar fields. Useful for pipeline ingestion, unusable as a human-readable list.
- The county legal organ is the Rockdale Citizen. Sale ads run in the legal ads section on Wednesdays for four weeks before a sale, which is the only public parcel notice besides the spreadsheet.
- The Office Relocation page splits the two addresses: the Tax Service Center at 1088 West Avenue handles in-person property tax payments and motor vehicle work, while the Administration Offices at 1096 West Avenue handle TAX SALES, DELINQUENT TAX COLLECTIONS, and PERSONAL PROPERTY COLLECTIONS. Direct tax sale correspondence to 1096 West Avenue.
- Office hours are 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, and 9:30 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Wednesday. Fax is 770-278-8956 and the office also takes questions by text at 678-964-4712. Call 770-278-7600 and press 5 to reach an agent.
- The procedures document Rockdale publishes is specifically titled Non-Judicial Tax Sale Procedures, so the advertised route is the O.C.G.A. Title 48, Chapter 4, Article 1 non-judicial tax sale with the Article 3 twelve-month redemption. No judicial in-rem (Article 5) program is advertised anywhere on the office site.
- GTS's own 2026 tax sale schedule corroborates the timing chain for the August cycle: tax sale list due 05.18.2026, 20 day levy notice 06.17.2026, legal advertising 07.09.2026, 10 day notice 07.24.2026, sale date 08.04.2026. That calendar is a vendor-wide first-Tuesday schedule covering all GTS counties rather than a Rockdale-specific one, so it is corroboration only and the county page governs.
- GTS states payment terms slightly more loosely than the county does, describing a one to two hour window to return with funds, while Rockdale's own procedures say payment is due within one hour of the sale. Follow the county figure.
- www.rockdalecountyga.gov returns HTTP 403 to some automated fetchers but serves normally to a standard browser user agent. The county homepage does not host tax sale content itself, it links the Tax Commissioner out to rockdaletaxoffice.org, which is where every sale fact lives.
- The Property Tax page carries the office's own disclaimer next to the procedures link: "NOT PROVIDED AS LEGAL ADVICE. For further questions, contact a licensed attorney." The procedures PDF repeats that the Tax Commissioner's Office does not give legal advice.
Georgia statewide rules
- Redemption
- The right to redeem runs for 12 months from the date of the sale and does not end there. It continues after the year until the tax deed purchaser forecloses it by serving and publishing the statutory barment notice, which cannot be started until 12 months have passed. The purchaser delivers the notice to the sheriff at least 45 days before the redemption deadline named in it, and publishes it once a week for four consecutive weeks in the six months immediately before that deadline. Redemption puts title back in the defendant in fi. fa. subject to the liens that existed at the sale, and the purchaser must execute and record a quitclaim deed. Title under a tax deed recorded on or after July 1, 1996 ripens by prescription four years after recording. Judicial in rem foreclosures under Article 5 run on a different clock: the owner has 60 days after the sale to redeem by paying the minimum bid price into the superior court.
- Deed deposit
- Georgia sets no statewide percentage deposit. A purchaser at a judicial sale may tender cash or a cashier's or certified check drawn for the purchase price and issued or certified by a federally insured financial institution. Counties publish their own payment terms, and many require payment in full at the close of the sale, so confirm the terms with the tax commissioner before bidding.
- Surplus proceeds
- Excess funds left after taxes, costs, and the expenses of the sale belong to the former owner and to recorded lienholders in order of priority. The officer who sold the property must mail notice of the excess funds by first-class mail within 30 days to the record owner at the time of the sale, to the holder of each security deed, and to every other party with a recorded equity interest or claim, and may file an interpleader action in superior court. Funds still unclaimed five years after the sale are paid over to the Georgia Department of Revenue, after which only a court order from an interpleader action releases them.
A tax deed does not convey marketable title. Most buyers file a quiet title action before they can resell or insure the property. See the due diligence guide.
Frequently asked questions
Does Rockdale County, Georgia sell tax liens or tax deeds?
- Rockdale County follows Georgia's redeemable deed state system.
How often does Rockdale County hold tax deed sales?
- annual. Each sale is scheduled and advertised in advance, so check the county's tax deed calendar for the next posted date.
Tax Sale Atlas publishes educational information about public tax sale processes. This is not legal, financial, or investment advice. Rules, dates, and fees change; confirm with the county office before you bid.
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