Behind on Property Taxes in Prince George’s County? The Four Numbers That Decide What Happens Next

Prince George’s County held its 2026 tax sale on May 11 — and if your property was in it, you have not lost your house. What sold was a lien: a debt against the property, not the property itself. You still own your home, you can still live in it, and nobody can even file to take title from a principal residence before February 12, 2027 — the county publishes that date itself. What you are in right now is a math problem, not an eviction. Four numbers decide how this ends: what you owe, the interest rate that actually applies to you, the fee clock that is currently sitting at zero, and the equity you have in the home. This page walks you through getting all four — from the county’s own records, not from anyone’s sales pitch, including ours.

Investors: we don’t publish, sell, or share the delinquent list — the county’s advertised listing and tax sale website are the only public sources. This page is for the homeowner.

Free and no-obligation. If keeping your house is the better move, we will tell you that and point you to the programs below.

Find Out Where You Stand — Free

★ 4.7 on Google — read our reviews

What the May 11 Sale Changed — and What It Didn’t

Prince George’s County runs one tax sale a year, in May, as an online sealed-bid auction — the 2026 sale concluded on May 11, 2026. If your account was in it, an investor bought a tax lien certificate on your property: the right to collect the delinquent taxes from you with interest, and — only much later, and only through a court — the right to ask a judge to end your ownership.

Here is what did not happen on May 11. Nobody bought your house. Under Maryland Tax-Property Article § 14-830, you keep the right to remain in possession and to exercise every right of ownership until a circuit court finally forecloses your right of redemption — and under § 14-827, you can redeem (pay off the lien and end the whole thing) at any time until that court order is final. The certificate holder cannot charge you a single dollar of legal fees yet, cannot contact a judge yet, and in fact will not even receive the physical certificate for a principal residence until February 2027 — the county mails them out roughly nine months after the sale.

One more thing worth knowing, because it surprises people: if your lien did not sell on May 11, it is not over. The county listed every unsold account on June 2, 2026, and has been selling those certificates by email — first come, first served, no registration needed — since June 10. An account nobody wanted in May can quietly get a certificate holder in August. Either way, the four numbers below work exactly the same.

The Four Numbers That Decide Everything

Every decision you will make — redeem, enroll in a state program, or sell — comes down to four figures. Two of them come from the county, one comes from Maryland law, and one is yours. Get all four in writing before you commit to anything, with us or with anyone else.

Number 1: Your exact payoff — from the county, in writing

To redeem, you pay the total tax sale price plus interest from the sale date to the day you pay — and you pay only the county, never the certificate holder. Start with your account balance at the county’s online lookup, taxinquiry.princegeorgescountymd.gov, then call the Tax Sale Unit at 301-952-3948 and ask for your exact redemption figure in writing, including which interest rate they applied.

The mechanics in Prince George’s County are stricter than most people expect, and each one of these has cost somebody a month of extra interest:

• Payment must be cashier’s check, certified check, mortgage company check, or money order — or a credit/debit card in person at the Treasurer’s office in Largo. No personal checks, no business checks, no cash, no phone or online card payments on a tax sale account.
• A mailed payment counts only when it is received — the county states plainly that it must be in the Treasurer’s office by the last day of the month and that the postmark date will not be accepted. Interest runs to the date the payment lands.
• Once an attorney is attached to your account (see Number 3), the attorney’s fees must be paid to the attorney and a release obtained before the county will accept your redemption money at all.
• A fiscal-year wrinkle the county publishes: since September 1, 2026, a non-principal residence must pay the full redemption balance and the entire new tax bill together. A principal residence can still pay just the redemption amount for the tax sale year — the county states this grace runs until May 2027.

Number 2: Your interest rate — 10% or 20%, and the difference is not small

For certificates sold at the May 2026 sale, Prince George’s County publishes two rates: 10% per year if the home is owner-occupied — or occupied by the heir of a deceased owner — and 20% per year for everything else (rentals, vacant lots, non-principal residences). The county’s tax sale site says it in those words: “the interest rate is twenty percent (20%) per annum on non-principal residences and vacant lots, and ten percent (10%) per annum for owner-occupied property and the heir of the deceased owner.”

The 10% figure is new, and it is not county generosity — it is state law. Maryland Tax-Property § 14-820(c), added by the 2025 tax sale reform (HB59, Chapter 231) effective January 1, 2026, says the redemption rate for owner-occupied residential property “may not exceed 10% a year.” That cap overrides the county’s own 20% figure for owner-occupied homes. You do not have to take our word for it — tap the statute and read it yourself.

Two traps hiding inside that number. First, the 2025 reform applies prospectively only: a certificate from the May 2026 sale gets the 10% owner-occupied rate, but an older, still-unredeemed certificate from 2025 or earlier stays at the old flat 20%. If you have been delinquent more than a year, you may have certificates under both rates. Second, not everything the county publishes has caught up — the county code and an older county Redemption page still show a flat 20% with no owner-occupied carve-out, while the tax sale site carries the correct split. Do not take a rate from a web page, including this one — make the Tax Sale Unit state your rate in writing and confirm which certificate year it applies to.

Two smaller pieces of good news for owner-occupied homes, both from the same 2026 reform: taxes, interest, and penalties that accrue after the sale date may not be added to your redemption payment (§ 14-828(a)(2)), and the eye-watering “winning bid” an investor may have placed does not raise your payoff by a cent — the high-bid premium is the bidder’s money, parked with the county and refunded to the bidder when you redeem. You never owe it.

Free and no-obligation. If keeping your house is the better move, we will tell you that and point you to the programs below.

Number 3: The fee clock — it reads zero today, and it has two alarms

Right now, a certificate holder on a May 2026 principal-residence certificate can charge you nothing beyond taxes and interest. Under Maryland Tax-Property § 14-843(b)(1), no expenses can be passed to an owner-occupied home in the first seven months after the sale — that window runs into mid-December 2026, and the county’s own dates page shows attorneys being added to principal-residence accounts starting December 14, 2026. For non-principal property the window was four months, ending mid-September 2026.

After the window closes, the certificate holder’s attorney can add legal fees of $500 plus a title search of $250, and postage — the county publishes those exact figures. And once a foreclosure complaint is actually filed in circuit court, chargeable attorney’s fees jump to $1,300–$1,500 plus court costs. The earliest that complaint can be filed against a principal residence is after February 12, 2027 — nine months from the sale, under § 14-833(a)(2); for non-principal property it is after November 12, 2026.

So the fee clock has two alarms, and both favor acting early: redeem before mid-December 2026 and an owner-occupied redemption is taxes plus 10% interest and nothing else. Resolve things before February 12, 2027 and no court is involved at all. There is also an outer limit running against the certificate holder: if they never file within two years of the certificate of sale, the certificate is void and they lose everything — but waiting them out is a gamble played with your house, and the county does not even mail principal-residence certificates until February 2027, which pushes that two-year clock later than most people assume. Confirm your own dates with the county rather than counting months yourself.

Number 4: Your equity — the number that is actually at stake

The first three numbers are usually four or five figures. This one is usually six. Prince George’s County homes routinely carry hundreds of thousands of dollars in value above a tax debt of a few thousand — and that gap is what a foreclosure judgment takes. If the process runs all the way to a final court order foreclosing your right of redemption, the certificate holder can end up with the property for the lien amount plus costs, and the value above it — your equity — is what you stand to lose. Maryland has been rewriting these rules in homeowners’ favor, and how much protection applies in your specific case is a question for a Maryland attorney, not a web page. But the frame is simple: every path on this page — redeeming, a state program, or selling — ends with you keeping your equity or converting it to cash. The only path that can take it all is doing nothing until the court is done.

Want the honest version of your own four numbers? Send us the address. We will lay out what the county records show, what a sale would put in your pocket, and whether — in our view — redeeming or a relief program beats selling. If it does, we will say so. We do not charge you anything for a conversation.

Before You Consider Selling: Programs That May Let You Keep the House

We buy houses. We would still rather you read this section first, because for some Prince George’s County homeowners one of these ends the problem without selling anything. If one fits you, take it.

The Homeowner Protection Program — it accepts you after the sale

Maryland’s Homeowner Protection Program, run by SDAT’s Office of the State Tax Sale Ombudsman, can keep a home out of tax sale for at least three years and set up an affordable plan to pay what is owed. Critically, it is not limited to people who acted before May 11: the program’s own application accepts homeowners whose lien was sold in the county’s recent tax sale and homeowners already in tax sale foreclosure. It has teeth, too — under § 14-811(i), the county shall withhold from sale the dwelling of an enrolled homeowner. That is mandatory language, not a request.

2026 prequalification: taxes owed of $7,000 or less; 2025 combined household income of $60,000 or less; assessed value of $300,000 or less; assets excluding the home of $200,000 or less. Contact the Ombudsman at (410) 767-4994 or toll free (833) 732-8411, or email sdat.taxsale@maryland.gov. Prince George’s County’s own homeowner guidance points to this exact program.

Homeowners’ Property Tax Credit — deadline October 1, 2026

This is the one live deadline on this page. The Maryland Homeowners’ Property Tax Credit cuts your property tax bill where the tax exceeds a set share of your income, and the 2026 filing deadline is October 1, 2026. Combined gross household income must not exceed $60,000, and net worth excluding your home and qualified retirement accounts must be under $200,000. The April 15 date that would have put the credit straight onto the July bill has passed; a filer now receives a revised bill instead. It is still worth filing — a smaller bill is a smaller problem next May. Apply through SDAT, or call the credit program at 410-767-5900.

The $1,000 threshold — how to stay off next year’s list

New for the 2026 cycle, and it will matter again next spring: the county must withhold from tax sale any owner-occupied home — or a home occupied by the heir of a deceased owner — whose total delinquency is under $1,000 ($750 for non-owner-occupied property and vacant land). If your remaining balance is anywhere near that line, paying it below the threshold is the cheapest insurance there is against the next May sale.

Talk to the county — and know what it does not offer

The Tax Sale Unit answers redemption questions at 301-952-3948, Monday–Friday. Be aware the county does not publish any installment or payment-plan program for delinquent taxes — partial payments were only accepted before the sale — so do not count on terms it has not stated. If a housing counselor would help, Maryland’s HOPE Hotline is 877-462-7555, free.

If the House Passed to You: Heir Rules in Prince George’s County

A large share of tax-delinquent homes in Prince George’s County are inherited — a parent or grandparent passes, the taxes fall behind while the estate sorts itself out, and the notice arrives addressed to someone who is gone. If that is you, Maryland law now treats you better than it used to, and the county’s own sale rules say so explicitly:

• The 10% redemption rate applies to “the heir of the deceased owner” living in the home — the county’s words — not just to an owner of record.
• The mandatory $1,000 withholding threshold covers heir-occupied homes the same as owner-occupied ones.
• Maryland’s 2026 legislation opened the Tax Sale Ombudsman’s services to heirs and people acting for a deceased homeowner, and lets heirs not yet on record title qualify for the homestead and homeowners’ tax credits for tax years beginning after June 30, 2026 — with a dedicated Heirs Legacy Protection Program (title-clearing help) coming July 1, 2027.

Selling an inherited home with delinquent taxes usually means probate and the tax clock running at the same time. We buy houses in exactly that condition — see our Prince George’s County probate guide for how the two processes fit together, or tell us a bit about your situation and we will walk you through both clocks honestly: the tax deadlines and, for heirs, how probate timing interacts with them.

If Selling Is the Right Answer

For some homeowners the honest math says: the debt is growing, the programs don’t fit, and the equity is worth protecting by converting it to cash before fees and a court case start eating it. If that is where your four numbers point, here is exactly what working with us looks like — and what we will not promise.

• We are a buyer. We buy houses in Prince George’s County directly. We are not a foreclosure rescue service, a counseling agency, or a negotiator. We do not contact your lender, we do not modify loans, and we do not represent you before the county or the circuit court.
• The debt ends at closing, not at signing. When the sale closes, the delinquent taxes and the certificate payoff are settled through the title company out of the sale proceeds — and it is that funded closing, not a signed contract, that ends the tax sale process. You receive any remaining equity.
• Speed, honestly stated. Most sellers have a written, no-obligation offer within 24 hours. Most of our closings take two to three weeks. When the title is already clean, we’ve closed in as little as 7 days. But we will not promise you a closing by any particular date against the deadlines above — anyone who does is guessing with your house.
• As-is means as-is. No repairs, no cleaning, no agent commissions. We cover closing costs at settlement, and the valuation and written offer are free with no obligation.

Between the offer and the closing table

• The price we write is the price we close at. We never renegotiate just to renegotiate. The number only changes if the property’s condition turns out to be materially different from what we could see or were told.
• Proof of funds comes with the offer. You will not have to take our word that the money is real — it is on the table when the number is.
• We keep visits to a minimum — scheduled around you, typically a single walkthrough before we finalize our number.
• You deal with Jacob from the first call to the closing table. If you tell us no, you get one follow-up and then we leave you alone — you will not be handed off to a call center or sold as a lead to five other investors.
• No pressure to sign. Accept it, or take time to think it over — either way, we understand. A real offer survives a second opinion.
• Closings run through established, independent local title companies. A neutral title company handles the settlement and the funds.

Tell us about the property and we will start with the four numbers, not with a pitch:

Where We Buy in Prince George’s County

We buy houses across Prince George’s County, including Oxon Hill, Capitol Heights, Suitland, District Heights, Hyattsville, Clinton, Fort Washington, Bowie, and Upper Marlboro — where the county’s own offices sit. Inside the Beltway or out, incorporated or not, tax-delinquent or simply tired: if it is in the county, we will look at it.

Questions Prince George’s County Homeowners Actually Ask

Someone “bought” my property at the tax sale. Do they own it now?

No. They bought a lien certificate — a debt with interest attached. You own the house, you keep possession, and title can only change if a circuit court forecloses your right of redemption, which for a principal residence cannot even be requested before February 12, 2027. Redeem before a court finishes and the certificate holder gets paid off and goes away.

Do I have to move out, or let the certificate holder in?

Neither. Maryland Tax-Property § 14-830 preserves your possession and all rights of ownership until a final court foreclosure. The certificate holder has no right to enter, inspect, collect rent, or tell you what to do with the property while your redemption right stands.

My lien didn’t sell in May. Am I in the clear?

No — the county has been selling the unsold certificates by email, first come first served, since June 10, 2026, and holds the rest itself under its own purchaser code. The debt, the interest, and the eventual foreclosure path all exist either way. The same four numbers, and the same relief programs, apply to you.

Is my payoff going up while I decide?

Yes — interest accrues from the sale date to the day your payment is received, at 10% a year on an owner-occupied or heir-occupied home from the 2026 sale (20% otherwise, and 20% on pre-2026 certificates). The bigger jumps are the fee alarms: attorney fees from roughly mid-December 2026, and $1,300–$1,500 more once a foreclosure is filed after February 12, 2027. Deciding early is cheaper than deciding late, in every scenario.

Will the tax sale hurt my credit?

The three major credit bureaus stopped including tax liens on consumer credit reports in 2018, so the lien itself does not appear there. A court judgment is a public record and a different matter — one practical reason not to let the process reach the courthouse if you have a choice.

Will you send me the delinquent tax list?

No. We do not provide it under any circumstances. The county’s advertised listing and tax sale website are the public sources.

The house also has code violations, or it’s tied up in an estate. Do you still buy it?

Yes — those usually arrive alongside tax problems. See our Prince George’s County code violations guide and our Prince George’s County probate guide, or just call and describe the situation.

Official Contacts — Verify Everything Here

Maryland’s tax sale statutes run from Tax-Property Article § 14-808 through § 14-854. The sections referenced above: 14-811 (withholding and the $1,000 threshold), 14-820 (redemption rate and the 10% owner-occupied cap), 14-827 (right of redemption), 14-828 (amount to redeem), 14-830 (possession), 14-833 (foreclosure timing), 14-843 (chargeable expenses).

Who You Are Dealing With

Other Ways We Help Prince George’s County Homeowners

• Sell a house in Prince George’s County — for sales with no tax issues
• Selling an inherited house in Prince George’s County
• Prince George’s County code violations
• Eviction help in Prince George’s County
• Tax delinquency nearby: Montgomery County, Howard County, Anne Arundel County, Washington, DC
• ← All tax delinquency solutions

Important Disclaimer

Consistent Homebuyers is a real estate investment firm — not a law firm, not a financial advisor, not a tax preparer. Jacob Simpson is not a licensed attorney or accountant, and nothing on this page constitutes legal, tax, or financial advice.

The county and statutory information on this page is sourced from the Prince George’s County Office of Finance (including its official tax sale website), the Maryland State Department of Assessments and Taxation, and the Maryland Code as published by the Maryland General Assembly, and was verified on July 21, 2026. Maryland tax sale law is changing rapidly — reform Acts took effect in January and June 2026 and more arrive through July 2027 — and individual circumstances vary enormously. Before acting on anything you read here you should:

• Get your own redemption figure in writing from the Tax Sale Unit at 301-952-3948, and ask which interest rate they applied and to which certificate year
• Call the State Tax Sale Ombudsman at (410) 767-4994 before assuming you have no options
• Consult a licensed Maryland attorney about your specific situation, particularly if a complaint to foreclose the right of redemption has been filed against your property
• Read the statutes yourself at the Maryland General Assembly website

This page is updated periodically but should not be your only source of information for decisions involving your home and your equity. Verify everything.