Cortland County, NY tax sales
Tax Sale Atlas maps the Cortland County, NY tax sale, one of 3,105 counties in 49 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 Cortland County, seat of Cortland: 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.
- Format
- County site
- County office
- 607-753-5070
On this page
How Cortland 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
- Cortland County Finance Department (Director of Finance), through its contracted auctioneer Auctions International
- Frequency
- annual
When it runs
Registration and deposit
Create a bidder account at www.auctionsinternational.com/register, then request, complete and return the originals of the Online Bidder Registration Packet for Cortland County to Auctions International, 11167 Big Tree Rd, East Aurora, NY 14052, by the packet deadline (4 pm on April 26, 2024, for the 2024 sale). Deeds are issued exactly as you register. Anyone who owes Cortland County, city, town, village or school taxes from prior years, has defaulted on an earlier bid, or is the former owner may not bid. Registration help: (800) 536-1401 x111.
Sale format and venue
Cortland County tax sale list and auction calendar
For Cortland 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 Parcel catalog for the most recent county auction (April 2024), Auctions International 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
Bidding runs on County site; check posted sale dates, registration status, and bidding windows there.Confirm with the office
If the list, platform, and notice disagree, use Cortland County Finance Department (Director of Finance), through its contracted auctioneer Auctions International as the source to confirm which parcels are actually offered.
Before you bid in Cortland County
4 checks
Start with the live sale list
Pull the current advertised parcels from Parcel catalog for the most recent county auction (April 2024), Auctions International. Lists can change before the sale, so recheck the county source before you price a parcel.Confirm registration and deposit
Create a bidder account at www.auctionsinternational.com/register, then request, complete and return the originals of the Online Bidder Registration Packet for Cortland County to Auctions International, 11167 Big Tree Rd, East Aurora, NY 14052, by the packet deadline (4 pm on April 26, 2024, for the 2024 sale). Deeds are issued exactly as you register. Anyone who owes Cortland County, city, town, village or school taxes from prior years, has defaulted on an earlier bid, or is the former owner may not bid. Registration help: (800) 536-1401 x111.
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
- Cortland County's foreclosure auction runs 100% online through Auctions International at www.CortlandCoAuction.com. In March 2026, Legislature Resolution No. 81-26 renewed the auctioneer contract with Auctions International for three years.
- The last county auction found closed April 30, 2024. Earlier auctions ran in July 2022 and August 2023, so the month varies. Ask the Finance Department at 607-753-5070 for the next sale date.
- The City of Cortland collects its own property taxes through 2026. Starting January 1, 2027, the county will collect the city and county taxes on parcels inside the city, if the city approves the needed charter changes. The county Finance Department takes over delinquent Cortland Enlarged City School District taxes on October 19, 2026.
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 Cortland County, New York sell tax liens or tax deeds?
How often does Cortland County hold tax deed sales?
I own a property in this sale. Can I stop it?
Where can I find the Cortland 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.
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