Waushara County, WI tax sales
Tax Sale Atlas maps the Waushara County, WI tax sale, one of 2,862 counties in 36 states. Wisconsin 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 11, 2026.
How tax deed sales work in Waushara County, seat of Wautoma: sale calendar, auction platform, over-the-counter lists, and the offices that run each sale.
New to tax sales? Read how Wisconsin tax sales work or look terms up in the glossary.
- Format
- In person
- Registration
- There is no bidder account to create and no registration to complete in advance.
- County office
- 920-787-0445
On this page
How Waushara County sells delinquent taxes
No tax lien certificate sale
Wisconsin counties sell no tax lien certificates to investors. Under s. 74.57(1) the county treasurer issues the tax certificate to the county itself, and s. 74.57(3) states that the county may not sell, assign, or otherwise transfer it. The section carries two carve-outs, and neither admits a bidder: a county may sell its right to receive tax certificate revenues under s. 74.635, which is a payment stream rather than a lien, and the county treasurer must reissue certificates to a city acting under s. 74.87 that has paid the delinquent taxes under an agreement made under s. 74.83.
Tax deed sale
- Run by
- Waushara County Treasurer's Office, which runs the tax deed property program, with sealed bids filed at and opened by the Waushara County Clerk's Office
- Frequency
- annual
- Registration
- There is no bidder account to create and no registration to complete in advance.
When it runs
Registration and deposit
There is no bidder account to create and no registration to complete in advance. Bidding is by sealed bid only, on the county Form for Bidding published with each batch on the Treasurer's Tax Deed Properties page. The form may be duplicated, extra copies are available at the Clerk's office, and a blank sheet is accepted as long as it carries the date, tax deed parcel number, bid amount, signature, name and complete address, and phone number. Submit a separate bid form in a separate sealed envelope for each parcel you bid on, with the outside of the envelope marked "Bid on Tax Deed Parcel No." followed by the parcel number, addressed to Waushara County Clerk, 380 S Townline Rd, Wautoma WI 54982. The Conditions of Sale require no deposit with the bid. No bid below the appraised value is accepted on the first attempt to sell, and the county publishes a fair market value for each parcel that doubles as the minimum bid. Equal bids are decided by postmark or date received, and the County Clerk reserves the right to reject any and all bids or to accept those most advantageous to the county. The winning bidder pays in cash, cashier's check or money order made payable to Waushara County Treasurer, due within approximately two weeks of notification, and the check must clear the bank before the sale is final. Conveyance is by quit claim deed unless otherwise specified.
Sale format and venue
Waushara County tax sale list and auction calendar
For Waushara 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 Tax Deed Properties, current sealed bid batch with parcel numbers and minimum bids for the current advertised parcels, then recheck it before the auction.Register to bid
Sale day
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 Waushara County Treasurer's Office, which runs the tax deed property program, with sealed bids filed at and opened by the Waushara County Clerk's Office as the source to confirm which parcels are actually offered.
Before you bid in Waushara County
4 checks
Start with the live sale list
Pull the current advertised parcels from Tax Deed Properties, current sealed bid batch with parcel numbers and minimum bids. Lists can change before the sale, so recheck the county source before you price a parcel.Confirm registration and deposit
There is no bidder account to create and no registration to complete in advance. Bidding is by sealed bid only, on the county Form for Bidding published with each batch on the Treasurer's Tax Deed Properties page. The form may be duplicated, extra copies are available at the Clerk's office, and a blank sheet is accepted as long as it carries the date, tax deed parcel number, bid amount, signature, name and complete address, and phone number. Submit a separate bid form in a separate sealed envelope for each parcel you bid on, with the outside of the envelope marked "Bid on Tax Deed Parcel No." followed by the parcel number, addressed to Waushara County Clerk, 380 S Townline Rd, Wautoma WI 54982. The Conditions of Sale require no deposit with the bid. No bid below the appraised value is accepted on the first attempt to sell, and the county publishes a fair market value for each parcel that doubles as the minimum bid. Equal bids are decided by postmark or date received, and the County Clerk reserves the right to reject any and all bids or to accept those most advantageous to the county. The winning bidder pays in cash, cashier's check or money order made payable to Waushara County Treasurer, due within approximately two weeks of notification, and the check must clear the bank before the sale is final. Conveyance is by quit claim deed unless otherwise specified.
Check the state rules that change the bid
Read the Wisconsin 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 Wisconsin 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
Wisconsin has no statewide over-the-counter program at a fixed statutory price, and no state-held certificate to assign. County inventory is what stays for sale. The county board may sell its tax-deeded lands on whatever terms it sets, may hire licensed real estate brokers on commission, and may advertise on a multiple listing service, so a county parcel can sit on the open market between sales. Once a parcel has been advertised and not sold, the county may sell it for any amount after a further class 1 notice, subject to board or committee approval below the appraised value. Ask the county treasurer or the land committee for the current list of unsold county-owned parcels and make a written offer. Approval still runs through the board or its committee, so nothing closes on the day.
New to this path? Read how over-the-counter purchases work. Every state has its own name for what goes unsold, so check what Wisconsin calls its leftover tax-sale inventory.
Use the arrow keys to switch between these sections.
County offices
Tax sale office
Waushara County Government Center, 380 S. Townline Rd., Room 1068, Wautoma, WI 54982
Official websiteCounty notes
- Bidding is by mail or in person, never online. Waushara County takes sealed bids on tax deed parcels at the County Clerk's Office, 380 S Townline Rd, Wautoma WI 54982, phone 920-787-0442, and opens them publicly the same morning they are due. There is no online auction platform and no bidder account to set up.
- Each parcel is published with a fair market value that is also its minimum bid, and no bid below the appraised value can be accepted on the first attempt to sell. A parcel that draws no acceptable bid can return in a later batch.
- One bid form per parcel, each in its own sealed envelope marked "Bid on Tax Deed Parcel No." with the parcel number. The form is published with the batch on the Treasurer's Tax Deed Properties page and may be duplicated, and a blank sheet is accepted as long as it carries the date, parcel number, bid amount, signature, name and complete address, and phone number. Equal bids are decided by postmark or date received.
- The winning bidder pays in cash, cashier's check or money order payable to Waushara County Treasurer, within roughly two weeks of notification, and the check must clear before the sale is final. Title passes by quit claim deed unless otherwise specified.
- Diligence sits entirely with the buyer. Parcels sell as is, the county will not show them and warns bidders not to trespass, and no abstract, title insurance or survey is provided. Acreage comes from the assessment roll and is not guaranteed. The buyer assumes cleanup and abatement of any violations, and confirming zoning and land use restrictions is the bidder's responsibility.
- Two questions to ask before you bid, both flagged in the county's own Conditions of Sale. Ask the Treasurer's Office whether the parcel is subject to Wis. Stat. 75.27, which lets a prior owner make a claim on the property for up to 3 years from the date of the tax deed foreclosure. Ask the municipal clerk whether any special assessments or special charges are still owing.
- Locate parcels before bidding on the county tax parcel viewer at https://gis.co.waushara.wi.us/TaxParcelViewer/. Enter the 12 digit parcel number with no hyphens, so 006-01671-1300 is entered as 006016711300.
- The Treasurer's page also carries a listing of all delinquent parcels eligible for tax deed foreclosure. That is an early warning list of parcels the county may acquire, not a list of parcels for sale. To be told when the next batch opens for bidding, send the Treasurer's Office a mailing or email request through the Tax Deed Properties page.
- Know what comes off the top if you are watching the surplus that flows back to former owners. Under the county's Tax Sale Costs Schedule, adopted under Waushara County Code chapter 46, article I, the sale price is reduced by outstanding taxes, interest, penalties, special assessments and special charges, plus a title search of $150 to $250, the tax deed filing fee, mailing and certified mailing, publication, maintenance, securing the property, signage, showing costs, any cleanup the county incurred, and two Treasurer's Office administrative fees of $250 each.
Wisconsin rules
- Redemption
- The redemption right in Wisconsin runs against the county, and it is over before an investor sees the parcel. Issuance of the tax certificate on September 1 starts the clock. Two years later the county may take its deed or start a foreclosure, but the right to redeem does not end on that anniversary: under s. 75.01(1)(b) any person may redeem at any time before the tax deed is presented to the register of deeds and accepted for record, and a redemption before recording makes the deed void as to the land redeemed. On the in rem route under s. 75.521 the county publishes a notice fixing the last day for redemption at least 8 weeks after first publication, and an interested party may instead serve a verified answer within 30 days after that date on the three grounds the section allows. Once the deed is recorded or judgment is entered, redemption is finished. Between the two, at least 6 and not more than 10 months before the redemption period expires, the county treasurer must publish a class 2 notice listing every unredeemed parcel with its amount due and the last day of redemption, which is the public list an investor can watch. Two things can still pull a parcel off a sale list afterward: the minor and incompetency extension in s. 75.03, and the former owner repurchase right in s. 75.35(3).
- Deed deposit
- Wisconsin fixes no statutory deposit. Section 75.35(2)(am) lets the county board sell its tax-deeded lands in whatever manner and on whatever terms it sets by ordinance or resolution, and s. 75.35(2)(d) lets the board delegate that power to a committee, an officer or a department, or hire licensed real estate brokers on commission. Deposits are county rules, not state law. St. Croix County requires a 10 percent deposit by cashier's check or money order with each sealed bid and rejects personal checks. Counties selling through the statewide online auctioneer instead take payment by certified check or wire transfer under the platform's terms. Read the county's own bid packet before you bid.
- Homestead deeds
- Owner-occupied homes are treated differently, and the difference can pull a parcel off the list. For single-family, owner-occupied properties the county board must by ordinance give the former owner who lost title, or that person's heirs or beneficiaries, the right to buy the land back before it is sold, on paying the costs and expenses under s. 75.36(3)(a), the property taxes that would have been owed for the year of the purchase, and enough to satisfy any other liens at the time of foreclosure plus the county's repurchase costs. The board may extend the same right to other property types at its option. A sale under that ordinance is exempt from s. 75.69 altogether, so it never reaches a public bid. Counties set their own window. Dane County gives the former owner 60 days from delivery of the treasurer's certified-mail notice. Treat an owner-occupied house on a Wisconsin land sale list as provisional until the repurchase window has closed.
- Surplus proceeds
- Wisconsin returns the surplus to the former owner, and the county treasurer has to go find them. On taking the tax deed the treasurer must notify the former owner by registered or certified mail, at the mailing address on the tax bill, that the former owner may be entitled to a share of the proceeds of a future sale. When the county sells, the treasurer computes net proceeds by subtracting foreclosure, record-keeping, legal, advertising and title insurance costs, the actual maintenance, board-up, clean-up and demolition costs reasonably needed to sell, real estate agent or broker fees, and all unpaid general property taxes, interest, penalties, special assessments, special charges and special taxes. From the net proceeds the treasurer pays any managed forest withdrawal tax and fee, then the taxing jurisdictions' special assessments and special charges, prorated if the money runs short. Anything still remaining goes to the former owner, less any delinquent taxes, interest and penalties that person owes the county on other property. A payment unclaimed one year after mailing becomes unclaimed funds under s. 59.66(2), and no interest is paid on any of it.
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 Waushara County, Wisconsin sell tax liens or tax deeds?
How often does Waushara County hold tax deed sales?
I own a property in this sale. Can I stop it?
Where can I find the Waushara County tax sale list?
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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