Across the country, counties close periodically and for various reasons. The most common reasons to close are year-end assessment valuations and tax (or lien) sales.
Year-End Assessments
This the time where the Treasurer shuts down their tax systems to update with the new assessment values and tax calculations.
The Assessor must set the new Assessed Values for all parcels for the previous tax year, then pass that to the Treasurer. Once the Treasurer receives that information, they must import to their system, adjust any levy/rate changes, make new tax calculations, and create the tax bills. Those tax bills must be released and sent to the parcel owners. Tax bills generally shows taxes due on the previous year's assessed value.
Tax or Lien Sales
When property owners don't pay their property taxes, counties take measure to ensure they get paid. While specifics vary by state, the general process requires the owner to be notified of over due balances, publication of past due balances online or in local newspapers, then a lien against the tax balance may be levied.
Often times, these liens are sold to private parties; individuals or investor groups. The counties often charge a fee, discount, or service charge to purchase the liens. Once purchased, the interest rate is often set and fixed by the county. The owner must pay the original balance, plus interest, to the lien holder to have the lien released.
Some states don't have tax sales and immediately turn over past due balances to collection agencies, which also add their own fees and interest that must be paid.
Closure Schedule
At COCRS, we strive to share any information with you that may affect your business and closing schedules. While we do our best to contact the counties proactively and prepare for the closures, we don't always get responses or know about them until they happen.
On our site, our County Closures page updates immediately as soon as we receive notifications from the counties, whether in response to our proactive emails or when they are no longer reachable online or by phone.
Processing Requests
For all requests submitted when a county is closed, we will submit them and/or process them as soon as we can when the county reopens. They will be processed in the order received, so please be patient once we begin processing the backlogs.