Behind on Property Taxes in St. Louis? Selling a House With Back Taxes, Special Tax Bills, and Liens

Short answer: Yes, you can sell a St. Louis house that’s behind on property taxes, and you can do it right up until the Sheriff’s land tax sale. Missouri’s Municipal Land Reutilization Law lets you redeem the parcel any time before that sale by paying everything owed, and a sale does exactly that through the title company at closing. The catch for anyone who doesn’t live in the house: the Collector generally can’t give you a payment plan, so the realistic choices are pay in full, sell, or lose the property at auction.

This guide is written for one kind of owner in particular. Years ago you bought a brick two-family flat in Gravois Park (it could just as easily be Dutchtown, Bevo Mill, or a block off Natural Bridge in North City). You lived upstairs and rented the downstairs, then took a job out of state and rented both units. The last tenant left more than a year ago. The tax bills that came each November went into a pile, Forestry sent a crew to cut the weeds, a back porch got cited, and now there’s an envelope from the Collector of Revenue saying the parcel is part of a land tax suit.

HomeCashOffer buys St. Louis houses as-is for cash, back taxes and City bills included, and we’ll be straight with you when catching up or listing would leave you with more. For the citywide picture, see our St. Louis and Missouri cash buyer hub and the St. Louis, MO city page.

Disclaimer: This is general information, not legal or tax advice. St. Louis ordinances, fees, and the Collector’s procedures change, and lien questions turn on the facts. Confirm your situation with the Collector of Revenue, the Sheriff’s land tax sale office, a Missouri real estate attorney, and your title company. If the owner on the deed has died, start with Selling an inherited house, because someone needs legal authority to sign before any of this can be paid off.

First question: is your house in the City or in St. Louis County?

It sounds basic, but it changes everything below. The City of St. Louis is an independent city, separate from St. Louis County, and the two run completely different tax collection systems.

• City parcels (Gravois Park, Dutchtown, Tower Grove South, The Hill, Walnut Park, and the rest of the city’s neighborhoods) go through a land tax suit filed by the City’s Collector of Revenue and a Sheriff’s sale under Missouri’s Municipal Land Reutilization Law, sections 92.700 to 92.920 of the Revised Statutes of Missouri. The City adopted that law in 1971 and created the Land Reutilization Authority (LRA) to manage tax-delinquent land.
• County parcels (Florissant, Ferguson, Affton, Lemay, Kirkwood and so on) are offered at the St. Louis County Collector’s tax sales. Buyers at the first and second offerings get a certificate of purchase, not a deed, and the owner has a one-year redemption period. The third offering carries a 90-day period, and post-third sales carry none.

A “St. Louis” mailing address doesn’t settle it, because plenty of County addresses use it. Look at who sends your tax bill. The rest of this guide is about City parcels.

How long before back taxes cost you the house in the City of St. Louis?

The City’s process has a few fixed points, and knowing where you are on it tells you how much room you have.

1. The bill and the deadline. The Collector mails tax notices each November, and taxes are due by December 31. Anything unpaid on January 1 picks up a one-time 2% penalty plus interest at 2% a month, capped at 18% a year, and when prior years are owed, the oldest year has to be paid first.
2. The suit. Delinquent parcels are added to a land tax suit. The Collector publishes a schedule of suits and sales; suits are filed most months (Suit 245, for example, was filed October 13, 2026, with publication dates running into November). The Collector’s page says the tax sale occurs approximately one year after the suit is filed.
3. Judgment and the six-month wait. After the court enters a judgment of foreclosure, section 92.810 gives a waiting period. If the parcel isn’t redeemed, and no written redemption contract is made, within six months after that judgment, the Sheriff starts advertising and sets the sale within 30 days of the first publication.
4. Notice. At least 20 days before the Sheriff’s sale, the Collector must mail notice to the lienholders and interested parties shown on the title report. That notice also says the parcel can still be redeemed before the sale.
5. The Sheriff’s sale. The Sheriff holds land tax sales several times a year, posts the property list two weeks ahead, and starts the bidding at the amount of taxes owed. Under section 92.750, an owner who hasn’t redeemed by the time of the sale is “barred and forever foreclosed” from the property.

What gets wiped out at that sale is broad. In a July 2025 decision involving a house on Kossuth Avenue, the Missouri Court of Appeals described the law as extinguishing all liens except IRS liens, and held that a sewer district lien did not survive a Sheriff’s sale. That’s good news for whoever buys at the auction and bad news for an owner with equity, because the mortgage, the liens, and your ownership all end together. If a sale ever does bring in more than what was owed, ask the Sheriff’s office and an attorney about any surplus right away. Don’t plan around getting it.

Why can’t a landlord or out-of-state owner just get a payment plan?

This is the detail that catches people in exactly the flat-owner situation above. Section 92.815 says the Collector shall enter into a written redemption contract with an owner whose real estate is occupied as a homestead, as long as they haven’t defaulted on one before. That contract can run up to 12 installments over no more than 24 months, and a court can stretch it to 48 months for good cause. The same section says the Collector shall not enter into a redemption contract for an improved parcel not occupied as a homestead.

So if you live in the house, a payment plan is a real tool, and you should call the Collector’s Real Estate Tax Department at (314) 622-4101 before you talk to any buyer. If it’s a rental or it sits empty, the law gives you no installment option once the suit is on, and the full balance is due before the Sheriff’s sale.

There’s a second wrinkle for those same non-homestead houses. Under section 92.750(4), redeeming an improved non-homestead parcel means paying not just the taxes in the suit but also the debts the parcel owes the City that the Collector knows about, which the statute lists as water, forestry, nuisance abatement, special tax bills, and vacant building assessments. Sewer district debts are excluded from that list. In plain terms, the redemption number on an empty flat can be noticeably bigger than the tax bills you’ve been stacking up.

What else shows up on a St. Louis title search besides the tax bill?

When a title company runs a City parcel, the property tax delinquency is often only the first item. These are the ones worth expecting on an older City house that’s been rented or empty:

• Special tax bills. This is the City’s way of charging the property for work it paid for. The City Code treats weeds and unattended vegetation over seven inches as a nuisance; when Forestry abates it and the bill sits unpaid 90 days after mailing, it becomes a special tax bill and a lien. Costs of a Building Division board-up, repair, cleanup, or demolition are billed the same way and stay a lien until paid.
• Building Commissioner citation fines. Ordinance 70736, effective in March 2018, lets the Comptroller turn certified administrative citation fines into a special tax bill and, once they’ve gone unpaid for more than a year, add them to the annual real estate tax bill.
• The vacant building fee. Ordinance 68610 set a semiannual registration fee for residential buildings that have been vacant for the prior six months and are in violation of the building code; the 2018 amendment describes it as $200 per six-month period. Ask the City for the current amount if your flat has been empty and cited.
• Water-refuse balances. The City bills water and trash together, quarterly, through the Collector. The City lists the refuse fee at $14 per dwelling unit, so a two-family flat carries two units, and it says legal collection typically begins 90 days after the due date.
• MSD sewer charges. The Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District bills separately from City water. MSD says that when you sell through a title insurance company, the balance is settled at closing and the account moves to the new owner.
• Judgment liens. Under RSMo 511.350 and 511.360, a judgment from a Missouri circuit court or a federal court sitting in Missouri is a lien on the debtor’s real estate in that county for ten years and can be revived. Associate circuit judgments only become liens once filed with the circuit clerk, and small claims and municipal court judgments don’t attach to real estate at all.
• Mechanic’s liens. If you paid a roofer or tuckpointer part of the bill and stopped, Missouri gives a contractor six months after the debt accrues to file a lien statement with the circuit clerk (RSMo 429.080), and the claimant then has a limited time to sue to enforce it.
• Federal tax liens. These are the exception that survives even a Sheriff’s sale. On a voluntary sale, the IRS has its own process for releasing a lien from a single property, usually a certificate of discharge, and it takes time, so start it early.

One cost you won’t see: Missouri has no real estate transfer tax, and its constitution bars new taxes on the sale or transfer of homes. Recording fees still apply.

What should you gather before you call anyone, including us?

You’ll get a more accurate offer from any buyer, and a more accurate picture for yourself, if you pull these first:

• The Collector’s account page for the parcel, showing each delinquent year and the balance (you can look it up by address on the City’s site).
• The suit number from the Collector’s letter, if you have one. It tells an attorney or title company exactly where you are on the timeline.
• Any Forestry, Building Division, or Citizens’ Service Bureau notices about the property, including board-up or condemnation letters.
• Your last water-refuse bill and MSD bill, with account numbers.
• Anything about judgments or contractor disputes in your name in St. Louis City.
• Whether the house has been your homestead at any point in the current delinquency, because that’s what decides the payment plan question.

If you live out of state, also confirm that the City has your current mailing address, because the sale notice under section 92.810 goes to the addresses shown on the title record.

When is a cash sale the wrong move for a St. Louis tax-delinquent house?

• You live there and qualify for a redemption contract. Two years of installments on your own home is often far cheaper than taking an as-is price. Call the Collector first.
• The balance is small next to the house’s value, and the house shows well. A renovated flat in Tower Grove South or Southampton with one or two years of back taxes is a closing line item, not a reason to discount the house. List it, and let the title company pay the Collector.
• You can fix the cause of the City bills cheaply. Getting weeds cut and a porch repaired stops new special tax bills from piling up while you decide.
• The Sheriff’s sale is days away, or you’ve filed bankruptcy. Talk to a Missouri attorney before signing anything with anyone, including us. A sale needs time to clear title, so this close to a deadline an attorney is the right first call.

How does selling to HomeCashOffer work when the City is owed money?

You call (405) 622-8705 or use the cash offer form and tell us what you know, even if it’s only “I got a land tax suit letter and the downstairs has been empty since last summer.” We look at the flat as it is, roof, masonry, porches, and all, and give you a written cash offer that names the debts we can already see. If you accept, a Missouri title company orders the Collector’s redemption figure, the special tax bills, the water-refuse and MSD balances, and any mortgage or judgment payoffs. Everything is paid from the sale price at closing, and you get what’s left. You choose the closing date, and the timing is mostly about how fast title clears.

What you keep is the price minus every one of those payoffs and the closing costs, whether you sell to us or list. On a listing, also subtract commission and whatever repairs a financed buyer’s inspection or appraisal demands on a century-old brick building. Put both versions side by side before you choose; Cash offer vs. listing with an agent and Sell as-is vs. fixing up walk through that comparison, and What to expect from a cash offer explains how offers are built.

If the real problem is the tenants rather than the taxes, our Missouri guide to selling a rental as a tired landlord in Kansas City covers the landlord side of state law. If the house has simply been sitting, see Selling a vacant or inherited house for cash. And if you’re comparing how other places handle back taxes, our Tampa guide to liens and tax certificates shows how different Florida’s certificate system is from St. Louis’s land tax suits.

HomeCashOffer, 3000 W Memorial Rd, Ste 123 Unit 308, Oklahoma City, OK 73120. Phone: (405) 622-8705.