Denver County

Register and fund the deposit by October 26

Everything happens on the auction website, not at the counter. Registration, deposits and pre-bids open on October 12, and registration and deposits close at 2:00 p.m. on Monday, October 26. Nobody can register or deposit after that. You get a bidder number when you register, and Denver will not accept your bids until the deposit is in.

The deposit is 10% of the total amount of liens you expect to win, paid by electronic funds transfer, and the Treasurer has the final word on whether a deposit is acceptable. It also works as a ceiling while you bid: if your deposit drops below 10% of the liens you have already won plus your active bids, those active bids are not accepted.

Type your name carefully: certificates, redemption checks and refunds are printed from your registration, and name changes go through the Treasury Division at (720) 913-9500. Buyers must be at least 18, and employees and officials of the City and County of Denver and their immediate families cannot buy. Public workstations are available at the Treasury Division, 201 West Colfax Avenue, on weekdays from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. until November 4, first come, first served.

Hourly batches and one-dollar bids

The liens are grouped into batches that close one hour apart, starting at 8:00 a.m. on November 2 and ending at noon on November 4, and each lien shows its own closing time. Each one opens at its face value: the unpaid taxes, interest, penalties and fees. Bids go up in $1 steps (C.R.S. 39-11-115(2)), and in a tie the auction site picks the winner at random, at the tied amount. Until its batch closes you can change or withdraw a bid; once it closes, the bid is final.

Anything you pay above the face value is a premium. Denver says it plainly: the buyer does not recover the premium. On top of the advertised amount, each purchase carries a $4 certificate fee and a $10 auction fee.

Denver's own page gives three versions of the timetable: batches from November 2 in the bidding rules, a single morning on November 4 in the published notice, and an outdated "2025 Public Auction for 2024 Real Estate Tax Liens" in the FAQ. Work from the bidding rules and the closing time shown on each lien. Our Market Pulse note has the sale in brief.

What is on the list

The unpaid list ran in The Denver Post on September 11, 18 and 25, in alphabetical order by owner. The auction itself runs in parcel number order, and the list in that order goes up on the auction site from October 12. The Treasury also posts the delinquent real property tax list as a spreadsheet. A Denver lien can be for more than general property tax: the notice also covers unpaid storm drainage and sanitary sewer charges and improvement and maintenance district assessments.

Two marks in the newspaper list change what you are looking at. "TS" flags a lien already sold at a previous year's sale and still unredeemed. "PARTIALLY PAID" means the amount is the second-half tax, or an extra fee for a service lien or a maintenance district payment, and that may be all that is owed on the parcel.

The list shrinks until the last minute, because owners can pay without redemption interest until 3:30 p.m. on Friday, October 30. And the property details on each bid page come from the Assessor's current assessment year, not from the tax year being sold, since taxes are paid a year in arrears.

One ACH debit on November 5

You do not send money after winning. The auction site starts an ACH debit for all your winning bids, from the last account you made a successful deposit from, no later than 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, November 5. If the payment fails for any reason, including a lack of funds, the related bids can be cancelled, the Treasurer can award the liens to another bidder or offer them again, and you can be barred from Denver's tax lien sales for up to five years (C.R.S. 39-11-116).

Denver tells you when your certificates of purchase are ready to pick up, gives you a list of your purchases by certificate and parcel number, and will hold the certificates and send copies if you prefer.

13% a year, counted by the month

The rate is not bid. It is the Federal Reserve discount rate on September 1 plus nine points; the discount rate was 3.75% this year, so certificates sold in November 2026 earn 13% a year, or 1.08333% a month. Any part of a month counts as a whole month. When the owner redeems, you receive the certificate amount (tax, interest, advertising and fees) plus that interest, but not the premium. Denver asks you to send the certificate back, or mails a check at once if it is holding it.

The premium changes the math. Take a $2,000 lien won with a $150 premium and redeemed four months and ten days later. That counts as five months: $108.33 in interest. After the $150 premium, you are $41.67 behind. If the Treasury later finds a lien was sold in error, it pays a lower rate: two points over the discount rate, rounded, never below 8%.

Later taxes: bring the certificate, do not just pay

If the owner also skips the next year's taxes, you can pay them and have them endorsed onto your certificate, so they are not sold to someone else at the next auction (C.R.S. 39-11-119). Endorsed payments earn the same 13% from the day you pay. Denver accepts them from July 1, and most buyers come in during the last two weeks of July.

You bring or mail the certificate itself to the Treasury Division's Special Accounts Unit (Dept 1009), which works out the amount and tells you what to pay; certificates are processed in the order received, over several weeks. The endorsement costs $5 per certificate, which you recover on redemption. Denver's instruction is short: do not just pay the taxes.

Three years, then an auction, not a deed

If the lien is not redeemed, Denver says the earliest you can apply is three years after the sale, which it puts at November 2029 for this year's liens. The statute, as rewritten in 2026, refers to August 1 of the third calendar year after the sale (C.R.S. 39-11.5-102(1)), so ask the Treasury which date it will apply. You surrender the certificate and post a $2,500 deposit per application; any unused part is refunded. What follows is not a deed straight to you. After its research and notices, the Treasurer holds a public auction of a certificate of option for a treasurer's deed, and only if no one redeems first.

Senate Bill 26-144 rewrote that auction for deeds issued from June 1, 2026. It is held 30 to 60 days after the notice is mailed (C.R.S. 39-11.5-109(1)). As the holder, you bid everything owed to you, fees included (C.R.S. 39-11.5-107). If nobody bids more, the certificate of option is yours; if a third party does, what you are owed comes out of the price. Anything above the total debt is the overbid, and it goes first to junior lienholders who file a timely claim and then to the former owner (C.R.S. 39-11.5-101, -112).

The same bill shortened certificate life. Denver's information sheet still says a certificate is valid for 15 years, but a certificate issued from January 1, 2026 remains a lien for seven years (C.R.S. 39-11-148). The statewide rules are on our Colorado page.

Four ways people lose money here

1. 1. Planning around November 4

   The notice and FAQ give November 4, but under the bidding rules bidding opens at 8:00 a.m. on November 2 and batches close hourly from then on. A lien in an early batch is gone before the day the newspaper names.

2. 2. Paying a later year's taxes yourself

   A payment made the ordinary way is not endorsed to your certificate. Send the certificate to the Special Accounts Unit and pay the amount it gives you.

3. 3. Letting the deposit fall behind your bids

   Once your deposit is under 10% of liens won plus active bids, your active bids stop counting, and deposits cannot be topped up after October 26 at 2:00 p.m.

4. 4. Bidding a premium on a lien likely to redeem fast

   The premium never comes back. On a small lien redeemed within months, it can be larger than all the interest you earn.