Assignment: how it works
Assignment of the county's tax lien
Every Montana tax lien is over the counter, because that is the only way one is ever acquired. The county holds the lien from the moment it attaches, and 15-17-323(1)(a) requires the treasurer to assign it to any person who first mails the assessed owner a notice of pending assignment by certified mail and then pays the delinquent taxes, penalties, interest and costs. The notice must be mailed at least 2 weeks before the payment, not earlier than August 15 and not more than 60 days before the purchase, and the buyer must hand the treasurer proof of the mailing. Counties add their own assignment fee, which ran from 50 to 75 dollars per parcel at the offices checked for this record. The treasurer issues an assignment certificate in the statutory form, mails a copy to the assessed owner, and files a copy with the clerk and recorder. In the first days after attachment most counties run an allocation step because several investors want the same parcels, and after that step the remaining liens sit with the treasurer and can be assigned on demand for the rest of the year. An assignee may pass the lien on to a new assignee for any consideration, which is binding only once a signed statement naming the old and new assignees and describing the property is filed with the treasurer.
Does Montana publish a lands-available list?
Montana keeps no lands available list and no struck to the state inventory. Parcels are never struck to the state, because the lien sits with the COUNTY from the day it attaches. What does exist is county tax-deed land. Where the county itself ends up with a tax deed, the board of county commissioners must within 6 months enter an order to sell the land at public auction, donate it to a municipality, donate it or sell it at a reduced price to a qualifying corporation for low income housing, or retain it. A sale may not go below a price the board fixes in advance, which may be set high enough to recover the taxes, assessments, penalties and interest due when the deed was taken plus the county's costs of taking the deed and running the sale. The county clerk publishes the notice with the list of lands, the department of revenue fair market value and the time and place. If no bids come in, the board orders another auction within 6 months and may reset the price, and after a second failure the land can be managed or disposed of under Title 7, chapter 8, part 25. Before bidding, note that the delinquent taxpayer or a successor may repurchase the land from the county up to 24 hours before the time fixed for the first offering.
This route skips the live auction, which means these are the parcels nobody bid on, so the due diligence matters even more. Every state names this inventory differently, and the state-held and struck-off land table maps each local name to the same mechanism. The over-the-counter guide has the cross-state playbook.
Verified Sep 10, 2026 against Montana sources.
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.