Glossary / Strike-off / struck-off list
Strike-off / struck-off list
When the room passes, the government becomes the holder of last resort. Struck-off inventory then resells through second-chance channels: county OTC counters, struck-off resales (Texas taxing units resell struck-off property), repository lists, or reoffer sales. The list itself is the researcher's raw material — dated, perishable, and skewed toward parcels the market judged harshly, which is why the workflow is filtration, not enthusiasm.
Track the list's rhythm: shelves restock right after each sale (Florida after May–June, California reoffers inside 90 days, Indiana's commissioners' inventory in winter/spring). Fresh struck-off inventory contains the auction's mistakes as well as its rejects.
Read a strike-off list the way a liquidator reads a warehouse manifest: the count tells you about the last auction, the composition tells you about the county. A list heavy with raw land slivers and estate parcels suggests structural leftovers; a list with ordinary houses suggests a thin room, a bad sale date, or prices the market rejected — three very different opportunities. Cross-reference struck parcels against the assessor's values and the next sale's list: parcels that return sale after sale are the market's verdict on their worth, while one-time appearances at odd moments are where the mispricings hide. And confirm current status before researching deeply — struck-off inventory sells and redeems quietly, and last quarter's list is a historical document.
In practice: Cook County, Illinois runs a biennial scavenger sale for parcels delinquent over multiple years — a struck-off-adjacent channel; Michigan re-offers unsold foreclosed parcels at reduced or no minimum bid, passing leftovers toward land banks.
See it in your state's law
Illinois tax sale laws · Michigan tax sale laws · Texas tax sale laws · Over-the-counter tax sales guide
Definitions verified 2026-10-30 against the sourced state-law dataset. Educational only, not legal advice.