Town Owned for Sale

When a property owner does not pay their property taxes, the property goes into a lien status for that year’s taxes. When the property owner fails to pay their taxes for a period of three (3) years, the town then takes deed/ownership of the property.

In most cases, the town holds the property for a period of three (3) years before offering it for public sale. In some cases the town has offered property for sale for less than the three-year period.

When the property is offered for sale, the public is notified and the Town accepts sealed bids for a period of time. A property packet of information pertaining to the deeded property such as location, acreage, past deed of ownership, property card, tax information, and so forth can be obtained through the Select Board office.

The acceptance of a bid is at the discretion of the Select Board.  A down payment may be required at the time the bid is accepted by the Board, which would be determined prior to accepting bids and would be noted in the “property packet”.

The back taxes, penalties, fees are included in the sale price of the property. 

Upon sale and acceptance of the property, the town files the quitclaim at the Grafton Registry, and upon signing, also files the required DRA forms including the CD57-P & CD57-S.  The Buyer is responsible for paying the buyer portion of the transfer tax fees.