Toole County, MT tax sales
Tax Sale Atlas maps the Toole County, MT tax sale, one of 2,862 counties in 36 states. Montana sells tax lien certificates paying up to 10%. Sale office, calendar and list locations read from state rules plus what the county publishes on Sep 11, 2026.
How tax lien and tax deed sales work in Toole County, seat of Shelby: sale calendar, auction platform, over-the-counter lists, and the offices that run each sale.
New to tax sales? Read how Montana tax sales work or look terms up in the glossary.
- Next sale
- Nothing is scheduled in advance.
- Format
- In person
- County office
- 406-424-8320
On this page
How Toole County sells delinquent taxes
Tax certificate sale (lien)
- Run by
- Toole County Treasurer and Assessor
- Frequency
- annual
- Typical timing
- Montana sets one lien calendar for every county and Toole County follows it.
- Registration
- There is no auction, no bidder registration, no deposit and no online portal.
When it runs
Registration and deposit
There is no auction, no bidder registration, no deposit and no online portal. The steps are a notice and a payment. Mail the person to whom the property was assessed a notice of pending assignment by certified mail, in the form printed at Mont. Code Ann. 15-17-323(6), carrying the owner of record, mailing address, legal description, parcel number and date of notice. Send it no earlier than August 15, at least two weeks before you pay and no more than 60 days before the purchase. Then bring the certified mailing receipt and a copy of the notice to the Toole County Treasurer at the courthouse in Shelby and pay the delinquent taxes, penalties, interest and costs plus the county's assignment fee. Toole County does not publish its assignment fee, its forms, its accepted payment methods or its written policy for competing requests, and all four are set county by county rather than by statute, so confirm them at 406-424-8320 before you mail anything.
Sale format and venue
Tax deed sale
- Run by
- County Treasurer
- Frequency
- As applied for. There is no deed sale calendar, and most parcels never reach an auction at all.
- Typical timing
- Nothing is scheduled in advance.
When it runs
Registration and deposit
Bidders at a Montana tax deed auction do not pre-register, but three requirements bind at the auction itself. An entity must give the treasurer written proof that it is a domestic entity before the treasurer will accept its opening bid, and a foreign entity may not buy at all. The high bidder posts a nonrefundable deposit at the time of sale of 5 percent of the bid or 200 dollars, whichever is greater, applied to the price on full payment, and the treasurer may ask bidders to show they can post it. Full payment of the purchase price plus the treasurer's auction costs is due within 24 hours of the sale, excluding weekends and legal holidays, and a bidder who misses it loses the parcel to the next highest bidder. Confirm the accepted payment methods with the county treasurer before the auction opens.
Sale format and venue
Toole County tax sale list and auction calendar
For Toole County tax sale 2026 searches, use the county-run sources below rather than a copied parcel list, and confirm the parcel, registration cutoff, deposit, and payment deadline against the county before you bid. If the parcels on this list are vacant land rather than houses, what buying land at a tax sale hands you is the place to start.
Get the advertised list
A county sale-list URL is still being verified. Use the office and platform details on this page before relying on a copied list.Register to bid
Ask the county office how and when to register; many counties close registration days or weeks before the sale.Sale day
Nothing is scheduled in advance. The sale is live and in person; there is no online bidding platform. Confirm the venue and hour with the county office before you go.Confirm with the office
If the list, platform, and notice disagree, use County Treasurer as the source to confirm which parcels are actually offered.
Before you bid in Toole County
4 checks
Start with the live sale list
The county sale-list URL is still being verified. Use the county office contacts below and confirm the advertised parcels directly before you price a bid.Confirm registration and deposit
Bidders at a Montana tax deed auction do not pre-register, but three requirements bind at the auction itself. An entity must give the treasurer written proof that it is a domestic entity before the treasurer will accept its opening bid, and a foreign entity may not buy at all. The high bidder posts a nonrefundable deposit at the time of sale of 5 percent of the bid or 200 dollars, whichever is greater, applied to the price on full payment, and the treasurer may ask bidders to show they can post it. Full payment of the purchase price plus the treasurer's auction costs is due within 24 hours of the sale, excluding weekends and legal holidays, and a bidder who misses it loses the parcel to the next highest bidder. Confirm the accepted payment methods with the county treasurer before the auction opens.
Check the state rules that change the bid
Read the Montana due-diligence checklist before bidding. Redemption, liens that survive a tax deed, title cleanup, and payment deadlines can change what a parcel is worth. Which liens survive is state law, so read what survives a tax deed in Montana before you price the title work.Set a walk-away number
Work out what the parcel is actually worth with the rural land value estimator, then turn it into a ceiling with the tax deed max-bid calculator.
Over-the-counter (leftover) purchases
unsold liens and deeds
Every Montana tax lien is effectively over the counter, because assignment is the only way one is ever acquired. The county holds each lien from the day it attaches, and the treasurer must assign it to any person who mails the assessed owner the statutory notice and pays the delinquent taxes, penalties, interest and costs plus the county's assignment fee. After the late August allocation step, whatever is left sits with the treasurer and can be assigned on demand for the rest of the year, subject to the same notice rules: not earlier than August 15, mailed at least 2 weeks before payment and no more than 60 days before it. Older tax years are assignable the same way. Separately, land the county itself took by tax deed is sold at a public auction the county commissioners must order within 6 months of acquiring title, at a price the board fixes in advance, with the list of lands and the time and place published by the county clerk. That county land auction is not a tax lien or tax deed sale and the delinquent taxpayer may repurchase up to 24 hours before the first offering.
New to this path? Read how over-the-counter certificates work. Every state has its own name for what goes unsold, so check what Montana calls its leftover tax-sale inventory.
Use the arrow keys to switch between these sections.
County offices
Tax Collector (runs the certificate sale)
County notes
- Toole County publishes no delinquent-tax or tax lien list on its website, and Montana requires no county to do so. The list an investor can actually obtain is the notice of pending attachment the treasurer publishes in the county's legal newspaper by the last Monday in June, plus the record of every delinquent property kept on file at the treasurer's counter in the courthouse and open to inspection. Legal notices for Shelby run in the Shelby Promoter, which is carried in the Montana Newspaper Association public notice archive. To get the current list, ask the Treasurer's office at 406-424-8320.
- One elected officer serves as Toole County Treasurer, Assessor and Superintendent of Schools, and that office collects property taxes and assigns the county's tax liens. Courthouse hours are 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Monday through Friday, closed on federal holidays. The courthouse switchboard is 406-424-8300 and the treasurer's direct line is 406-424-8320.
- Montana's one real tax sale auction is narrow and never on a calendar. Where the redemption period has run out on property containing a dwelling currently occupied by the legal titleholder, the assignee cannot take a deed outright: under Mont. Code Ann. 15-18-219 and 15-18-220 the assignee applies and the treasurer must hold a public auction in the county within 60 days, noticed parcel by parcel with a published minimum opening bid that carries half the assessed value, a nonrefundable deposit of 5 percent of the bid or 200 dollars, whichever is greater, and full payment within 24 hours excluding weekends and holidays. Watch the county's published legal notices for these, because they are scheduled on an assignee's application rather than annually.
- A Toole County sheriff's sale or foreclosure sale notice is a mortgage foreclosure and carries no tax lien position. The August attachment is likewise not an investor sale: it moves the lien to the county, and only an assignment from the treasurer puts it in private hands.
Montana rules
- Redemption
- The clock runs from attachment of the tax lien, which happens no later than the first working day in August, and it ends on the first working day in August of the third year after that. Redemption stays open for the whole period and the assignee cannot shorten it. On the residential auction track the right to redeem runs further still: the statutory notice tells the parties that a tax deed will be auctioned unless the lien is redeemed before the date of the auction, and 15-18-112(4) lets a particular tax year be redeemed until a deed has issued under 15-18-211 or 15-18-220. Interest and costs keep accruing until the day of redemption, and the county treasurer, not the assignee, calculates the payoff as of the date of payment. A redemption before the lien is assigned goes to the county; after assignment the treasurer pays the assignee.
- Deed deposit
- The high bidder posts a nonrefundable deposit with the county treasurer at the time of sale of 5 percent of the bid or 200 dollars, whichever is greater, and the deposit is applied to the sale price on full payment. Notice of the deposit requirement must be posted at the auction site, and the treasurer may require bidders to show they can post it. The treasurer may refuse to recognize a bid from someone who previously bid and then refused to honor the bid.
- Surplus proceeds
- Montana pays the owner's equity out rather than letting it be forfeited. The portion of the opening bid equal to half the most recent assessed value of the land and of the dwelling is treated as surplus funds, and so is anything a winning bid adds above the opening bid. Where the deed is bought by someone other than the assignee, the treasurer first repays the assignee the amount paid for the assignment, including delinquent taxes, penalties, interest and costs, plus everything paid on the tax deed application under 15-18-219(2). The treasurer then distributes the surplus to the legal titleholder of record within 30 days of receiving payment from the purchaser, whether or not the titleholder lives in Montana. On the ordinary non-auction track there is no sale, no bidding and no surplus: the assignee receives the deed itself.
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 Toole County, Montana sell tax liens or tax deeds?
When is the Toole County tax certificate sale?
How often does Toole County hold tax deed sales?
I own a property in this sale. Can I stop it?
Verified Sep 11, 2026 against official county and state 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.
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