Investors are buying Ohioans’ unpaid property tax debts, with 18% interest

Investors from Omaha to Chicago last year bought tens of millions of dollars worth of delinquent property tax debts from Ohio county treasurers, setting new records in several counties.

This gives those institutional investors the right to collect on liens, plus up to 18% interest, from Ohioans who are buckling under the weight of post-pandemic leaps on their property tax bills .

State lawmakers in 1998 legalized the sale of delinquent tax debt, joining roughly half of U.S. states that do so.

Several of Ohio’s biggest counties are now selling record levels of certificates, according to data provided by their treasurers’ offices. Cuyahoga County in June sold off $18 million worth of debt, higher than any year on record. Franklin County last year sold $10 million, double the size of most years’ sales. In the Cincinnati area, both Hamilton and Warren counties sold off more debt in 2025 and 2026 than any year over the past decade. Lucas County is planning its first tax lien sale since 2008.

The system rewards companies as property owners accrue more debt. Buyers of the initial liens also give investors the right to purchase all “subs” – subsequent lien certificates that counties sell off when a property once again falls behind on its taxes. Those certificates require by law an 18% interest rate atop the principal. In rare cases, the investors can pursue foreclosure if debtors fail to pay.

County treasurers say the lien certificate sales are a critical enforcement tool. In most cases, the repeated letters warning property owners of a looming sale spur them to settle their debt or enter a payment plan. And the tax liens that are sold, they say, make an efficient means for counties to collect what they’re owed. The entire system acts as a deterrent, ensuring people pay in full and trust that their neighbors aren’t freeloading.

Plus, several treasurers negotiate different kinds of consumer protections into the sales, like limiting interest rates or screening out certain low-income households or small-dollar debtors from sales.

Endgames from lien sales can be devastating. Last year, Ashtabula County’s treasurer wrote a letter to Tax Ease Ohio – an affiliate of PVOne Capital, of Chicago – asking for debt forgiveness for a 73-year-old widower. The county sold Tax Ease five certificates for the man’s debt in 2014 and 2015 worth nearly $21,000. A decade later, he had already paid $40,500, and still owed another $21,600.

“It is never the goal of this office to see members of our community lose their homes, particularly elderly residents who have worked diligently to meet their obligations,” wrote treasurer Angie Maki-Cliff in a letter to the company.

Interest in eliminating these sales has gained traction in Columbus. Bipartisan lawmakers have proposed legislation that would prohibit the sales of these liens on residential and agricultural properties. The effort is backed by mortgage lenders, who say the debts resemble predatory loans in that the interest rates trap borrowers in a debt cycle that ends with crippling payments far beyond the original bill.

The lawmakers also criticized county treasurers for what they described as outsourcing their work enforcing Ohio’s tax laws.

“Property owners should not be subject to a predatory lien sale without their consent,” said Daniel Broering, CEO of the People’s Bank Co., to state lawmakers. “It is a business model built around profit from displacement.”

Amy Acton, a former physician and state health official running for governor as a Democrat, recently proposed a crackdown on county lien certificate sales. In a statement, her campaign said the lien sales can be appropriate, especially against “corporate bad actors.” The statement also called for cracking down on “predatory” collections practices against vulnerable homeowners who are struggling to pay after a hike in their tax bill.

The political pressure comes as new assessments on homes have triggered leaps in biannual tax bills for homeowners. More than 320,000 Ohioans have signed a petition to constitutionally abolish property taxes in Ohio , a radical shift that would knock out a central pillar of the state’s revenue. Lawmakers have since passed legislation expected to reduce property tax bills by billions over the next three years , and the issue could play a central role in an unexpectedly close gubernatorial race.

The state doesn’t track county-by-county sale data. The County Treasurers Association of Ohio has declined to provide it to Signal Statewide, or to state lawmakers who have requested it.

Signal Statewide reached out to treasurers of Ohio’s 10 most populous counties. Nine provided data – Montgomery declined, stating it would need two weeks to do so.

In June, Cuyahoga County sold $18 million worth of debt in a negotiated sale to Nar Solutions, a lender with a listed address above a retail pharmacy in Omaha, Nebraska.

County Treasurer Brad Cromes said the county took steps to protect residents beforehand. The office excluded from the sale properties with delinquencies less than $1,000, those worth less than $100,000, owner-occupied units in designated impoverished or marginalized communities, or those that claim the homestead exemption. Interest rates were also capped at 6% (down from 12% in pre-pandemic years), although subsequent sales are legally required to be sold at 18% interest.

Data Cromes provided shows most of the tax debts from the most recent sale came from 2024 ($4.7 million), 2023 ($3.2 million) and 2022 ($3.5 million).

For Franklin County, including Columbus, investors bought $10 million in delinquent property taxes last year, compared to a 10-year average of about $3 million annually on such sales. PVOne Capital bought it, with a 14% interest rate attached.

In Hamilton County, which includes Cincinnati, the county sold $4.5 million in 2025, more than any year over the past decade.

Nearby Warren County sold off nearly $1 million in debts earlier this year at 17.5% interest to PVOne Capital. That’s about twice the amount as the last time the county executed a full sale in 2019, according to County Treasurer Randy Kuvin.

Summit County sold about $4.5 million worth of its residents’ debt last November. Adair Asset Management, of Omaha, bought it, plus a 5.75% interest rate. The company also bought about $1.4 million in subs, at 18% interest.

Two Northeast Ohio lawmakers – Democratic Rep. Dan Troy and GOP Rep. Dave Thomas – introduced legislation to eliminate lien certificate sales for agricultural and residential property.

Troy referred to the investors as “headhunters” doing the counties’ “dirty work” of pressuring people in financial hardship for cash. Thomas said county treasurers need to do their job and work with taxpayers locally, not farm hometown problems to out-of-state corporations.

“You have no idea who these people are, where they are,” he said of the investors. “But you know who your county treasurer is.”

Small banks take issue with the sales as well. Some lenders told lawmakers that they don’t always know when their mortgage customers’ debts are sold, which raises two problems. For one, it impacts the underlying investments like a residential home; and the sale could be avoided by the bank acquiring the debt and working with the property owner to resolve it. This, they say, produces a better outcome for all parties – bank, debtor and county – besides the outside investors.

Several owners offered stories of how the lien sales went sideways.

Broering, the People’s Bank Co. CEO, offered lawmakers several horror stories. In one, he said a borrower, without the bank’s knowledge, accrued about $26,500 in tax debts over several years. But he kept up with his mortgage payments in the meantime. The bank only learned about the liens after two had been sold, at 17.5% and 18% interest.

Repayment cost nearly $40,000,

“By the time we find out that there is a problem, a third-party purchaser has already moved in, assumed first lien priority, and began charging interest at rates between 17.5% and 18% per year,” he said. “We are left to deal with the wreckage.”

Brett Hillyer, an attorney and former lawmaker, offered another example from one of his clients. He said Tax Ease foreclosed on the property of a homeowner who died, before the property could be sold. The $4,000 in debt, Hillyer said, cost $13,191 after interest and fees to resolve.

In interviews and legislative testimony, treasurers defended their practice. They said lien certificate sales are a last resort, not a knee-jerk reaction. They’re a byproduct of growing delinquent tax debts. In most cases, taxpayers settle up before their liens are sold. And most of them require consumer protections in their debt sales.

Kuvin, the Warren County treasurer, said the certificates are an “efficient” answer to the county’s problems of collecting a large volume of relatively small-scale individual debts.

Cromes, the Cuyahoga County treasurer, echoed the idea. He said the county has capacity to pursue about 2,000 foreclosures per year. The lien sales effectively double that capacity, allowing more enforcement on more debts.

“We’re using them for the most part to pursue scofflaws and irresponsible out-of-town investors – freeing up our staff to manage higher sensitivity cases (and assist homeowners who are struggling and truly making an attempt to connect with resources that will keep them in their homes),” he said in an email.

Jill Schiller, the Hamilton County Treasurer, said she’s open to Acton’s proposal to codify consumer protections into state law, like excluding homestead exemption recipients or capping interest rates. But she noted some pluses for consumers – a lien sale is a fresh start for a payment plan or 18 months’ runway before a foreclosure.

And the sales have other uses, she said. Ohio’s land banks rely on them to acquire dilapidated properties. And Hamilton County uses some of their proceeds to fund a delinquent tax forgiveness fund.

“It’s a really important tool for us,” she said.

Without the sales, treasurers have two options when residents fail to pay their taxes: absorb the lost revenue, which is supposed to fund schools, police and fire departments; or begin the slower and more costly route of foreclosure through the court system.

“There will be consequences for taxpayers when others stop paying because of a lost enforcement tool,” said Stark County Treasurer Alex Zumbar.

This story was originally published by Signal Ohio and distributed through a partnership with The Associated Press.