Monroe County, NY tax sales
Tax Sale Atlas maps the Monroe County, NY tax sale, one of 3,029 counties in 44 states. New York sells the deed itself, so no statutory investor interest rate applies. Sale office, calendar and list locations read from the county’s own official pages on Sep 28, 2026.
How tax deed sales work in Monroe County, seat of Rochester: sale calendar, auction platform, over-the-counter lists, and the offices that run each sale.
New to tax sales? Read how New York tax sales work or look terms up in the glossary.
- Next sale
- Tax sale scheduled for November 17, 2026.Tuesday · 2026
- Format
- In person
- County office
- 585-753-1200
On this page
How Monroe County sells delinquent taxes
No tax lien certificate sale
under Article 11. The county or other tax district keeps the delinquent tax lien and enforces it itself; no tax lien certificate is sold to individual investors. RPTL 1190 lets a tax district contract to sell liens in bulk to the state Municipal Bond Bank Agency or one of its tax lien entities, which is a negotiated contract with a state agency, not an investor sale. New York City (Bronx, Kings, New York, Queens and Richmond counties) sells tax liens under N.Y.C. Admin. Code 11-319 only to a single authorized buyer, a trust, and not to the general public. Nassau County is the notable exception: it enforces taxes under its own county administrative code and its Treasurer sells tax liens at a public online auction each February.
Tax deed sale
- Run by
- Monroe County Treasury Division, Department of Finance (the Assistant County Treasurer sells as court-appointed Referee under the Monroe County In Rem Tax Foreclosure Act)
- Frequency
- annual
When it runs
Registration and deposit
Register at the sale site on auction day, or download the registration form from www.monroecounty.gov, fill it out and bring it. Every bidder must show proof of at least $3,000 in good funds to enter the sale site. The County's closing instructions show a 10 percent deposit paid at the auction ($1,200 on a $12,000 bid), with the balance due at closing by bank check, attorney trust account check or money order.
Sale format and venue
Monroe County tax sale list and auction calendar
For Monroe 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
Use 2026 foreclosure auction open bid list with minimum bids for the current advertised parcels, then recheck it before the auction.Register to bid
Ask the county office how and when to register; many counties close registration days or weeks before the sale.Sale day
Tax sale scheduled for November 17, 2026. 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 Monroe County Treasury Division, Department of Finance (the Assistant County Treasurer sells as court-appointed Referee under the Monroe County In Rem Tax Foreclosure Act) as the source to confirm which parcels are actually offered.
Before you bid in Monroe County
4 checks
Start with the live sale list
Pull the current advertised parcels from 2026 foreclosure auction open bid list with minimum bids. Lists can change before the sale, so recheck the county source before you price a parcel.Confirm registration and deposit
Register at the sale site on auction day, or download the registration form from www.monroecounty.gov, fill it out and bring it. Every bidder must show proof of at least $3,000 in good funds to enter the sale site. The County's closing instructions show a 10 percent deposit paid at the auction ($1,200 on a $12,000 bid), with the balance due at closing by bank check, attorney trust account check or money order.
Check the state rules that change the bid
Read the New York 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 New York 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 properties
New York counties keep no statewide over-the-counter list. A county may sell a parcel left unsold at auction by negotiated or sealed-bid sale, but any sale other than a public auction to the highest bidder needs approval by the county's governing body. Whether this county holds any such inventory must be confirmed with the county treasurer.
New to this path? Read how over-the-counter purchases work. Every state has its own name for what goes unsold, so check what New York calls its leftover tax-sale inventory.
Use the arrow keys to switch between these sections.
County offices
Tax sale office
County notes
- Monroe County enforces taxes under its own Monroe County Tax Act and In Rem Tax Foreclosure Act. The August tax sale certificate goes to the County, and investors buy property at the County's September in rem foreclosure auction.
- The 2026 foreclosure list was filed in the Monroe County Clerk's Office on March 27, 2026 (In Rem Action No. 150), and parcels that are redeemed before the sale are withdrawn from it.
- Closing on a 2026 purchase requires two checks: the balance of the bid payable to Bond, Schoeneck & King and deed recording fees payable to the Monroe County Clerk ($190 for a single-page residential deed, $315 for other property, plus $5 per extra page).
- The City of Rochester holds a separate in rem auction, usually in November. Parcels in both proceedings can be lost to the City sale if it happens before a County buyer closes.
New York rules
- Redemption
- In Article 11 jurisdictions redemption runs before the public ever buys. The owner or anyone with an interest can redeem by paying the enforcing officer the delinquent tax liens plus all charges, until the redemption period expires: two years after the lien date by default, or a later date if the published notice of foreclosure names one. A tax district may by local law extend the period for residential or farm property to three or four years, and for residential property of certain deployed military members to four or five years, or shorten it to one year for residential property found vacant and abandoned and placed on a municipal roll. When one tax district holds several liens on a parcel they are redeemed newest first, and foreclosure continues while the oldest lien is unpaid. Anyone who neither redeems nor answers is barred, and the final judgment extinguishes every equity of redemption, so a buyer at the county's later auction takes property no longer subject to redemption. Suffolk County, which enforces under its own tax act, instead records a tax deed and accepts redemption applications within six months of recording.
- Deed deposit
- No statewide deposit amount. Deposits, bidder registration deadlines, buyer premiums and accepted payment forms are set in each county's terms of sale or the auction contractor's terms; read them before bidding.
- Surplus proceeds
- New York returns surplus to the former owner and lienholders. Under RPTL 1196, added by L.2024, c.55, Part BB after Tyler v. Hennepin County, the enforcing officer must determine within 45 days after the sale whether a surplus exists by subtracting the taxes, interest, penalties and charges (including the foreclosure cost allowance in RPTL 1102) from the price paid at a public sale, or from the property's full value where the sale was not public. Any surplus is paid into court with a report, and the former owner is notified within ten days. Under RPTL 1197 anyone with an interest just before the judgment may claim a share, adjudicated as in a mortgage foreclosure under RPAPL Article 13. At a public auction the price paid is accepted as full value, so no claim can be brought that the price was too low. For residential property with no claim from the former homeowner, the proceeding stays open at least three years. Unclaimed surplus goes to the tax district to reduce its levy. The buyer's price is not reduced by any of this.
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 Monroe County, New York sell tax liens or tax deeds?
How often does Monroe County hold tax deed sales?
I own a property in this sale. Can I stop it?
Where can I find the Monroe County tax sale list?
Verified Sep 28, 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.
More New York counties
Browse all 62 New York counties
Compare sale calendars, platforms, and rules across the state, or read the guides before you bid.