These are the questions people ask in the first week after they learn that a foreclosure or tax sale may have left money behind. The answers are deliberately short, and every one of them is written to hold up in any state, which means the specific numbers in your matter come from your own papers rather than from this page.
Start with the group that matches your worry
The questions sit in four groups. The basics covers what surplus funds are, how to tell whether any exist, and where the money physically sits. Deadlines covers the claim window, the notice you may never have received, and money that has already been handed to a state. Who gets paid covers priority, liens, heirs and co-owners. Working with us covers cost, what a specialist does, and what only a licensed attorney may do.
If you read one group, read Deadlines. Almost every claim that fails, fails on a date.
Surplus funds in one paragraph
Take the price the buyer paid at the sale. Subtract the costs of the sale and the debt that was foreclosed. Subtract valid junior liens in their order of priority. Anything still standing belongs to the person who held title, or to that person’s heirs. If the subtraction runs out before it reaches you, there is nothing to claim, and a straight answer to that effect is worth more than an encouraging one.
Where these answers come from
Foreclosure and property tax collection are state subjects, so there is no federal claim form and no national deadline. What is national is the principle: a government may not keep more from a tax sale than it was owed. These pages summarize general rules, name the offices that actually hold money, and send you to your state page for the numbers.
If your question is not here
A page cannot read the liens on your title or the date on your notice, so the numbers in your own matter come from your own papers rather than from here. To see what it takes to qualify for our help, read the how to qualify guide. For who has the right to the money, read who can claim, and for the rules where the property sold, open your state page.
The basics
They are the money left over when a property sells at a foreclosure auction or a tax sale for more than the debt plus the costs of the sale. The lender takes what it was owed, the sale costs come off the top, and the remainder is not the lender's money. It belongs to whoever held title and, behind them, to lienholders in order of priority.
Compare the price the buyer paid with the debt that was foreclosed. The price appears in the deed recorded after the sale, in the court file where a judge confirmed it, or in the county's published tax-sale results. Then ask the holder directly. No trustee, clerk or county charges you for that answer.
It depends on how the sale was run. After a non-judicial sale the trustee usually holds it and pays it out under the state's statute. After a judicial sale it is often deposited into the clerk of court's registry and released only by court order. Tax-sale money usually stays with a county office until a deadline passes.
No. A mortgage or deed-of-trust foreclosure is brought by a lender over an unpaid loan. A tax sale is brought by a county or city over unpaid property taxes, and the leftover money is usually called excess proceeds. Different office, different form, different clock.
Because the statutes do. Surplus funds, excess proceeds, overage, overbid and remaining proceeds all describe the same money, and which term you meet depends on the state and on whether the sale was a foreclosure or a tax sale. Use the word that appears on the paperwork you received when you contact an office.
Deadlines
Your state sets the deadline. Some windows stay open for years after the sale, and some are as short as a few weeks counted from a single mailed notice. Others do not begin until a deed is recorded. Never count days from a website. Take the date off the document you received and check your state page.
Not necessarily. Notices normally go to the last known address, which is often the house that was just sold, so plenty of former owners never see them. What matters now is where the money is: still with the trustee, deposited with a court, sitting in a county fund, or already transferred to a state program. Each of those has a different route back to you.
No. Every state and the District of Columbia runs an unclaimed property program with a free public search, and surplus that nobody claimed often lands there. Money in that system is usually claimable for a long time, sometimes indefinitely, though the paperwork gets heavier the longer it sits and the more the family has changed.
An uncontested claim against a trustee or a county fund is often a matter of weeks to a few months. Anything that has to go through a judge takes longer, because the court sets the hearing date. Add time when heirs have to be proved, when a probate has to be opened, or when a lienholder files a competing claim.
Who gets paid
Almost everywhere the order is the same: the costs of the sale, then the debt that was foreclosed, then junior liens in order of priority, then the former owner or the owner's successors. Junior liens can include a second mortgage, a home equity line, HOA assessments, recorded judgments and some tax liens.
Possibly. A junior lienholder stands ahead of you but collects only what it can document, and not a dollar more. Whatever remains after valid junior liens goes to the former owner. A lien that was already paid off, has expired, or names the wrong person can be challenged rather than simply subtracted.
The right to the money belongs to the estate, not automatically to whoever lived in the house. Which document opens the door depends on the state and the size of the estate: a small-estate affidavit, letters issued by a probate court, or a certification of trust when the home was held in a living trust.
It follows title as it stood on the day of the sale. Joint tenants and spouses holding by the entirety usually take by survivorship, tenants in common take their separate shares, and community property states apply their own rules. A divorce decree that awarded the house or its proceeds to one of you controls between the two of you, so have a copy ready.
Working with us
A private organization of post foreclosure specialists and advocates, working in all 50 states and D.C. When a public office is named on these pages, it is because that office holds the records or the money a claim depends on.
There is no out-of-pocket expense for a claimant. The specialists advance the filing fees, certified-copy charges and notary costs, and a completion fee comes out of the surplus once the funds are recovered. Nothing is owed if nothing is recovered, and the fee is written down before any work starts.
When the money has moved to a court or a state program, when heirs have to be found and proved, when a probate is needed, when lienholders are claiming the same dollars, or when the costs of filing need to be advanced. The specialists clear those hurdles and keep the claim inside the deadline.
Where your state requires a licensed attorney for a court or probate filing, a licensed attorney handles it, and you still pay nothing out of pocket. The specialists prepare authorizations, verifications, affidavits and notarizations, deal with the trustee, clerk and county, and do not appear in court for anyone.