If the tax sale certificate is not redeemed, it “transfers to its holder ownership of the tax sale property, free of the ownership and other interests, claims, or encumbrances held by all duly notified persons.”1 Importantly, a tax sale certificate only converts to ownership once both the redemption period has expired and the interested parties are duly notified. The expiration of the redemption period does not automatically mean that the tax sale purchaser owns the property.2 The key in any tax sale defense is to determine that your client was not “duly notified.”
A party can be “duly notified” by anyone, i.e., the tax collector or the tax sale purchaser, either before or after the tax sale occurred. The tax sale party can be duly notified even without actual receipt of notice.3 If a tax sale party is “duly notified” after the expiration of the redemptive period, a tax title will convert to ownership 6 months after the tax sale party is duly notified.4 To prevent the tax sale purchaser from becoming the owner, the debtor must file a nullity action within that 6-month prescriptive period.5
- 1La. R.S. 47:2121(C)(1).
- 2See La. R.S. 47:2121(B) (providing that a tax sale has no effect on non-duly-notified interested parties).
- 3La. R.S. 47:2122(4).
- 4See generally Cent. Props. v. Fairway Gardenhomes, LLC, 2016-1855 (La. 6/27/17), 225 So. 3d 441.
- 5La. Const. art. VII, § 25(C) (“Annulment. No sale of property for taxes shall be set aside for any cause, except on proof of payment of the taxes prior to the date of the sale, unless the proceeding to annul is instituted within six months after service of notice of sale.”).