Volusia County Tax Deed Sales: Bidding, Payment, and Title

Volusia County tax deed sales are online public auctions run by the Clerk of the Circuit Court to sell properties with delinquent property taxes. They happen at volusia.realtaxdeed.com, start at 9:00 AM ET on scheduled sale dates, and every property sells as-is with no warranties of any kind.¹ To bid, you register on the auction site, post a deposit, do your own title and property research, and be ready to pay the full balance by noon the next business day if you win.

The sale is triggered when a tax certificate holder applies for a tax deed. That can happen any time after two years have passed since April 1 of the year the certificate was issued.² From there the clerk schedules the auction, notifies interested parties, and publishes notice, and the property goes to the highest bidder.

How the Opening Bid Is Set

The opening bid is not arbitrary. For a non-homestead property, it equals the amount needed to redeem the applicant’s tax certificate, plus the applicant’s costs and fees, any fees the clerk incurred, all subsequent tax certificates sold on the property, any omitted taxes, and current taxes if due.³ Interest of 1.5 percent per month is added, running from the month after the application date through the month of sale.⁴

Homestead properties are different, and the difference is large. On top of everything above, the clerk adds an amount equal to one-half of the property’s latest assessed value.³ A homestead parcel with $8,000 in back taxes and a $200,000 assessed value can open above $108,000. Many investors skip homestead listings for this reason.

Registering and Posting a Deposit

Bidders register for an account at volusia.realtaxdeed.com. The deposit is 5 percent of your anticipated final bid or $200, whichever is greater. You can pay by ACH (electronic check), wire transfer, cashier’s check, or money order. Cash is not accepted.¹

Deposit timing is strict. ACH payments must be submitted at least four full working days before the sale. Wire transfers and cashier’s checks must arrive by 2:00 PM ET on the business day before the sale. Cashier’s checks and money orders have to be delivered in person to the Tax Deed Department at the Volusia County Courthouse, 101 N. Alabama Avenue, Room C119, DeLand, Florida.¹

Do Your Own Due Diligence

Tax deed properties sell as-is with zero warranties. The clerk’s notice explicitly disclaims any representations about title, liens, zoning, environmental conditions, physical condition of improvements, utility access, and even whether the property is buildable or usable.¹ Every bit of the homework falls on you.

Start with the Volusia County Property Appraiser, which provides parcel data, assessed values, and GIS mapping to verify boundaries and location.⁵ Check zoning, flood zone, and road access. Plenty of tax deed parcels are landlocked strips or retention ponds that look cheap for a reason.

Then search the clerk’s Official Records for liens. Most private liens and mortgages are wiped out by the tax deed, but municipal and county government liens, special district liens, and community development district liens survive if they aren’t fully paid from the sale proceeds.⁶ The tax deed file on the auction site includes the title search report and the list of notified parties, which is worth reading before you bid.

Federal tax liens deserve their own check. When the IRS has a lien that predates the local tax lien, that federal lien survives the sale.⁷ The federal government also has 120 days after the sale, or the period allowed under state law if longer, to redeem the property. If it does, you get your money back plus interest and certain expenses, but you lose the property.⁸

How Bidding Works on the Portal

Auctions run on the RealTaxDeed platform. You can bid manually in real time or set a proxy bid with a maximum, letting the system raise your offer automatically. Each property has a countdown timer, and a bid placed in the closing moments resets the timer so other bidders can respond.⁹

The certificate holder who applied for the sale can bid too. If no one outbids them, they get the property at the opening bid.⁴

Paying After You Win

Winning bidders face a hard deadline. The full remaining balance and all fees must reach the clerk by 12:00 PM ET on the next business day after the sale. Wire transfers must land by that same noon cutoff. Cashier’s checks and money orders must be hand-delivered to the Tax Deed Department by noon. The clerk’s office describes this as “no exception.”¹ Miss it and you forfeit your deposit; the clerk cancels the bids, readvertises the property, and applies your forfeited deposit to the costs.⁴ The clerk can also refuse to recognize your bids at future sales.

Beyond the bid, you owe documentary stamp tax and recording fees. Documentary stamps run $0.70 for every $100 of the purchase price, or fraction of $100.¹⁰ Recording fees are $10 for the first page and $8.50 for each additional page, which covers the base fee, the public records modernization surcharge, and the per-page service charge.¹¹ On a $50,000 winning bid, expect roughly $350 in documentary stamps plus recording fees.

What the Tax Deed Clears and What It Doesn’t

A Florida tax deed wipes out nearly every prior interest in the property. Mortgages, private judgment liens, and most encumbrances end when the deed issues.⁶ The exceptions that survive are liens held by a municipal or county government, special district, or community development district that were not fully paid from the sale proceeds, along with pre-existing federal tax liens. Those become the buyer’s problem.

Surplus Funds

When a property sells for more than the opening bid, the surplus is applied first to any surviving government liens and unredeemed tax certificates. The remainder is held for the former owner and other parties with recorded interests.¹² For homestead sales, the one-half assessed value amount added to the opening bid is treated as surplus and distributed the same way.

Interested parties other than the former owner have 120 days from the clerk’s notice to file a written claim. Missing that deadline permanently bars the claim. The former owner is not subject to that cutoff, and if no one files within the 120-day window, the law presumes the former titleholder of record is entitled to the surplus.¹²

Getting Marketable Title After the Sale

Owning a tax deed and having marketable title are two different things. Most title insurers will not insure a tax deed property without a quiet title judgment, because the former owner, missed lienholders, or parties with unrecorded interests could still contest the sale. A quiet title action is a lawsuit filed in the circuit court where the property sits, asking the court to declare your ownership valid and extinguish competing claims.¹³

The complaint includes the legal description, your interest, and the names of potential claimants. Unknown parties can be served by publication in a local newspaper. If no one contests, the court issues a default judgment. Attorney fees for an uncontested quiet title typically run between $1,500 and $5,000, with contested cases costing considerably more. Budget for it before you bid, because without it you may own property you cannot sell, refinance, or insure.

1
Clerk of the Circuit Court – Volusia County. Tax Deeds
2
The Florida Senate. Florida Code 197.502 – Application for Obtaining Tax Deed by Holder of Tax Sale Certificate; Fees
3
Florida Senate. Florida Code 197.502 – Application for Obtaining Tax Deed by Holder of Tax Sale Certificate; Fees
4
The Florida Senate. Florida Code 197.542 – Sale at Public Auction
5
Volusia County Property Appraiser. Volusia County Property Appraiser
6
FindLaw. Florida Code 197.552 – Tax Deeds
7
Florida Department of Revenue. OPN 93-0053 – Tax Deed; Survival of Liens; Lien Holders Not Notified of Action to Quiet Title After Sale
8
Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 28 USC 2410 – Actions Affecting Property on Which United States Has Lien
9
Realauction. Volusia County Tax Deed Sales
10
The Florida Senate. Florida Code 201.02 – Tax on Deeds and Other Instruments Relating to Real Property or Interests in Real Property
11
The Florida Senate. Florida Code 28.24 – Service Charges by Clerk of the Circuit Court
12
The Florida Senate. Florida Code 197.582 – Disbursement of Proceeds of Sale
13
The Florida Senate. Florida Code 65.011 – Real Estate; Certain Jurisdiction Over