Frequently Asked Questions

Yes, not paying a tax lien can eventually result in losing your property. However, in most jurisdictions, the minimum time between us acquiring the tax lien and initiating a foreclosure is at least 1 year. In many jurisdictions, it is two years or more. The foreclosure process takes time, and you will receive a number of notices related to the foreclosure.

Send the mortgage company a copy of our payoff statement. It contains your tax parcel ID from the tax commissioner, so your mortgage company can check their payment records. Note your mortgage ID number (find it on your payment stubs) and request that they pay off the tax lien. If the non-payment is their error, they will generally not charge you. They may pay us directly if they so choose.

InVesta Services does not provide information to any credit reporting agency. However, delinquent taxes are a matter of public record. Credit reporting agencies may be including information about delinquent taxes in their reports. InVesta Services has no control over this. Upon payment, InVesta Services and / or the taxing authorities will make the proper entries to show the delinquent taxes have been satisfied. If credit reporting agencies are examining the tax records correctly, they will see that the delinquent taxes have been paid. As InVesta Services does not have a relationship with any of the credit reporting agencies, we cannot instruct them to remove information from their reports.

Local governments will issue tax liens on properties with overdue taxes. These liens are issued and initially held by the tax collector of the city, county, or township in which the property resides. But if the liens remain unpaid, eventually the tax collector will face one of two options: (i) proceed to foreclose upon and sell the property in order to satisfy the amount due for unpaid taxes, or (ii) sell the liens to a third party such as InVesta and thereby collect the taxes due. Many tax collectors, such as the Fulton County Tax Commissioner, prefer this second option rather than initiating foreclosure and selling the taxpayer's property.

No, not unless you ignore attempts to collect this debt for over a year, do not request a payment plan, and do not contact us before a sheriff’s sale. As a general rule, InVesta does not exercise its right to direct the Sheriff to levy on the underlying property until 12 months or more have passed after your tax lien is transferred to InVesta Services.

Regardless of who holds the Fi. Fa., us or the tax commissioner, the penalty is 5 percent every 120 days from when the tax bill was originally due, up to a maximum of 20 percent. (OCGA 48-2-44)

In addition to the interest and penalty, we also charge and collect the actual cost charged to us by the Clerk of Superior Court for recording the transferred Fi. Fa. (OCGA 48-3-19 (d)) If your property has been levied, the levying official (the Sheriff or the Tax Commissioner) will add additional fees as allowed by state law. These fees are collected by the levying official and not InVesta Services.

If you are not receiving tax information from the county (either assessment notices or tax bills), it is your responsibility to notify the appropriate office to correct the problem. As every tax commissioner in the State of Georgia will tell you, not receiving a tax bill does not mean you do not have to pay taxes. Georgia law assumes (and the courts have confirmed this assumption) that a property owner should know when taxes are due and therefore attempt to make a payment even without receiving a tax bill. Local property taxes are very similar to the way the IRS handles federal income tax. If a person does not file a tax return (and does not pay any taxes) the IRS will add large penalties and file a lien. The IRS mails out tax forms and instruction booklets at the beginning of each year, but it is doubtful that anybody has ever successfully used the excuse that they did not receive a 1040 form in the mail to avoid paying late penalties. Every person owning property in the State of Georgia is also responsible for filing a return with the Board of Assessors each year. However, unlike the IRS, Georgia law provides that if a real-estate return is not filed, the Board of Assessors will determine the value of the property for tax purposes. (Filing a return with a value different from what the Board of Assessors assigns is considered an appeal of the property’s value and will result in a revaluation of the property and then a formal hearing to set the property’s value.) When no tax return is filed, the law also considers this an acceptance by the property owner that the information maintained in the tax records is correct.

In Georgia, ad valorem taxes on real property are due annually generally between July 15th and December 15th. If left unpaid, these taxes begin to accrue interest at the rate of 1% per month; additionally a 10% penalty is added to taxes which are 90 days delinquent. In order to collect delinquent taxes, penalties, and interest, the County Tax Commissioner will follow certain statutory procedures to issue a Writ of Fieri Facias (tax lien), otherwise known as a Fi. Fa., against the taxpayer and the underlying real property. The tax lien is a legal writ or order to the Sheriff to seize or “levy” upon the subject property and sell it in order to satisfy the amount due on the tax lien.

You can make your payment to us by personal check, money order, or cashier’s check, whichever you prefer. We cannot accept credit card or cash, nor can we accept payments made over the phone or through electronic means. Due to the volume of payments we process each day, we strongly suggest that you mail your check to our mail drop at 1266 West Paces Ferry Road Box 517, Atlanta, GA 30327. When we receive and process your payment, we will mail you a receipt. If you have not gotten a receipt back from us within 10 days of mailing your payment please contact us by phone or web form to place a request to research the matter. After we process your payment, we will file the legal papers to cancel the tax lien with the County. The process generally takes 60 to 90 days.

We do not. However, a tax lien represents a lien on your property that is superior to the lien held by your mortgage company. For this reason many mortgage companies contact us directly.

Ask your County Tax Commissioner. InVesta Services purchases only those tax liens that the Tax Commissioner has made available for transfer. If you believe that your taxes were paid prior to the Fi. Fa. being transferred, contact your County Tax Commissioner. If the Fi. Fa. was transferred in error, the Tax Commissioner can reverse the transfer. We do not have the ability to research a payment made to the Tax Commissioner prior to the transfer.

Regardless of whether the Fi. Fa. is held by us or the tax commissioner, the interest rate is the same. After July 1st, 2016, the base interest rate is 3 percent plus the bank prime loan rate set by the Federal Reserve. The interest rate can change on January 1st of each year based on the current bank prime loan rate. (OCGA 48-2-40) Some cities and counties are authorized to charge a supplemental interest rate so that the total rate is 12 percent. (OCGA 48-5-24) The interest rate described above is far less than the rates charged by many credit card companies. It is also much lower than those charged by consumer loan companies.

The property tax process is a complicated system that involves many steps. In Georgia, property taxes are calculated using the following formula: 40% of the Property Value * Millage Rate = Tax Owed First the County Commissioners set the Millage Rate. A Mil is like a percent, except it is 1/1000 rather than 1/100. Tax rates are expressed in Mils because it is more convenient to say ‘fifteen mils’ instead of ‘one-point-five percent’. The Board of Assessors is responsible for determining the value of all of the property in the county. However, every citizen has the right to dispute the value set by the Board of Assessors. This appeal must be made to the Board of Assessors and not the Tax Commissioner and must be made before June 1 of each year. The Tax Commissioner takes the information from the Board of Assessors and the County Commission and calculates the tax owed for each piece of property. The Tax Commissioner is responsible for mailing bills and collecting payments. The Tax Commissioner is not responsible for the increase in taxes from one year to the next, nor is he responsible for increases in property values. Public policy has created many adjustments to the basic tax calculation described above. For example, to promote individual home ownership, a fixed reduction in the valuation of the property has been granted on residential property when the owner lives in the house. Similar exemptions are granted for senior citizens, veterans, and the disabled. In some cases, additional tax adjustments may be granted to certain areas to promote development. These exemptions and adjustments can be set by all levels of government resulting in a tax bill that can be very complicated.

In many cases, the statement that a lien has not been cancelled will be made after a person searches an index for a document from InVesta Services granting the lien back to the owner of the property. When no such document is found in the index, the person assumes that the lien has not been cancelled. The correct way to research the status of a lien is to find where it was originally filed and look for a cross-reference to the cancellation document filed by the lien holder. Whenever possible, InVesta Services will supply the filing information (the book and page) for locating the cancellation information directly. The fact that the Clerk of Superior Court does not have this document indexed like a normal property deed does not in any way affect the fact that the lien has been cancelled. When property is sold a deed is recorded showing that Person A sold the property to Person B. In order for Person A to get the property back, a deed must be recorded showing that Person B sold the property back to Person A. Tax liens do not operate this way. When a tax lien is paid in full, the holder of the lien does not give it back to the person who owed the taxes in the first place; instead, the lien holder directs the Clerk of Superior Court to mark the lien as cancelled. This involves the lien holder filing a cancellation document stating that the lien has been paid. The Clerk then physically marks the original document in the record room as paid and includes a reference to where the lien holder’s cancellation document is filed.

Whenever real property (i.e. land and houses) is transferred in the State of Georgia, the buyer and seller complete a PT-61 Form (Real-Estate Transfer Tax Declaration) and give it to the Clerk of Superior Court when the deed is filed. The PT-61 form provides the information to the county that is used to send out tax bills. However, the information from a PT-61 form will not go into effect until the year after the form is filed. This form asks for the following information: The seller’s name and address The buyer’s name and address Some brief information about the parcel (including its identification number in the tax records of the county) A statement of the transfer tax due from the sale A copy of this form is sent to the Board of Assessors and Tax Commissioner who then enter the information into the county’s records. The closing attorney generally completes the PT-61 form during a real estate transaction. There is no single method to account for taxes at a real estate closing. However, it is rare for the seller to be 100% responsible for the property taxes (unless the closing occurs very late in the year and the seller has already paid the taxes). Usually, the buyer will receive a credit from the seller for a portion of the tax bill and then when the tax bill comes due in the fall the amount will be paid completely by the buyer. In some cases the closing attorney will hold the funds and be responsible for paying the tax bill. However, regardless of the methodology used at a particular closing the tax commissioner will proceed to collect taxes by sending a tax bill (which will have the seller’s name on it) and eventually file a lien if no payment is made. The lien is filed against the property (which is now owned by the buyer) and therefore becomes the buyer’s responsibility. In the end, after buying real estate, the buyer must be diligent in following up with the Tax Commissioner’s office to be sure that taxes are paid for the year in which the property was purchased.

The fastest and lowest cost to you would be to fill out our web form. We will generally get back to you within 24 hours. We receive over 300 requests for information each day and we can only effectively respond to and properly document requests by giving preference to requests made by email. We can be reached by phone at 404-949-3850, but due to the massive number of calls we receive each day our phones roll over to an answering machine, which we respond to after all email requests are answered. You may also come to our offices at 2961 Olympic Industrial Drive to get your payoff amount or make your payment in person. We strongly recommend that you submit your requests via our web form.

We will work with taxpayers unable to pay the full balance. Please write or fax our office to ask for such arrangements. Absent special circumstances, we suggest arrangements that allow you to pay off the tax lien over a period of 12 months. Please note that interest charges continue to accumulate while your account remains unpaid, so the lowest cost alternative for you would be to pay the debt immediately if possible.

The Tax Commissioner’s duties are to bill and collect taxes. It is the Clerk of Superior Court who maintains a record of all of the liens that are filed in the county. (This record of liens is called the General Execution Docket.) As part of the collection process, the Tax Commissioner may issue a tax lien (the legal term for a lien in Georgia is ‘Writ of Fieri Facias’ which is usually just abbreviated as ‘FiFa’) that is then filed with the Clerk of Superior Court. As another part of the collection process, the Tax Commissioner may accept payment from a third party such as InVesta Services and transfer the County’s interest in that lien to the third party. When this happens a document will be filed with the Clerk of Superior court saying that the previously filed tax lien is now owned by the third party. At this point, the Tax Commissioner has fulfilled his or her duty by collecting the amount owed on the taxes for the county or city. The Tax Commissioner’s records will indicate that the lien was transferred after the county received payment in full (from the third- party transferee) and nothing else. Further information about the lien (including its release after payment has been made to the third party transferee) is filed with the Clerk of Superior Court on the General Execution Docket and not the Tax Commissioner’s office.