Which states are covered?
All 50 states and the District of Columbia, listed from A to Z below. Under each name is one key rule from that state, and each section was checked against official sources.
- Alabama
An act in effect since October 2026 lets an Alabama Class 1 city make owners register vacant buildings, pay registration charges, and secure and maintain them.
- Alaska
Alaska cities and boroughs foreclose on unpaid property taxes once a year, then must hold the property at least a year so owners can redeem it.
- Arizona
Arizona requires every city and town to make owners clear dilapidated buildings that endanger the public, and a recorded city cleanup bill outranks the mortgage.
- Arkansas
Arkansas land forfeited for unpaid property taxes is auctioned once a year by the Commissioner of State Lands; owners can redeem until the last business day before.
- California
In Los Angeles, lenders must register homes in foreclosure, inspect them every month and keep vacant ones secured against break-ins.
- Colorado
Colorado lets the lender take possession of an abandoned house before the foreclosure sale, with a receiver's duty to care for it.
- Connecticut
In Connecticut towns of 15,000 or more, a neighbor within 1,000 feet can petition a court to put a long-vacant building in a receiver's hands.
- Delaware
Delaware towns can make sheriff's sale bidders certify they own no other property in town that has sat vacant for 18 months without a permit.
- District of Columbia
D.C. taxes a building on its vacant list as Class 3 property, at $5 for each $100 of assessed value, against $0.85 for Class 1A homes.
- Florida
Florida code enforcement boards can fine an owner for each day a violation continues, and a recorded fine order becomes a lien on the land.
- Georgia
After a Georgia tax sale, anyone with a legal interest has twelve months to redeem the property by repaying the bid plus a 20% premium.
- Hawaii
In Hawaii, any citizen living in the county can sue in their own name to abate a nuisance, including a property occupied by people with no legal claim to it.
- Idaho
Idaho counties take a tax deed once property taxes go unpaid for three years, and the owner can redeem for up to fourteen months unless the county sells first.
- Illinois
Illinois gives lenders a fast-track foreclosure for abandoned homes; once a court finds a house abandoned, redemption ends 30 days after the foreclosure judgment.
- Indiana
Indiana lets a county auction a tax-delinquent house found vacant or abandoned, with the buyer getting a deed and the owner no right to redeem afterward.
- Iowa
An Iowa city can ask a court for title to a building abandoned for at least six months, and the court can award it free of the respondents' liens.
- Kansas
Kansas lets a housing nonprofit ask a court for temporary possession of an abandoned house it plans to fix up, and later for a deed if the owner never steps in.
- Kentucky
Kentucky lets a city or county ask a court to put a conservator in charge of a building that has stood vacant and blighted for at least a year.
- Louisiana
Louisiana auctions the tax lien on a house with unpaid taxes rather than the house itself, and the owner keeps it until a court judgment is carried out.
- Maine
Maine lets a court declare a house in an uncontested foreclosure abandoned, cutting the owner's time to redeem from the usual 90 days to 45.
- Maryland
Maryland lets a lender ask a circuit court to start foreclosure right away on a house that is vacant and abandoned.
- Massachusetts
Massachusetts lets a city or town ask the Land Court right away to foreclose on land taken for taxes once its buildings are found to be abandoned.
- Michigan
Michigan cuts the redemption period after a foreclosure sale to about a month when a home of up to four units has been abandoned.
- Minnesota
Minnesota lets a lender or the city where an abandoned house sits ask a court to cut the owner's foreclosure redemption period to five weeks.
- Mississippi
Mississippi land left unredeemed for two years after a tax sale is forfeited to the State, and the Secretary of State then sells it, giving adjoining owners priority.
- Missouri
Missouri lets a qualifying nonprofit take court-ordered possession of a long-empty, tax-delinquent nuisance house to rehab it, and later ask for a deed.
- Montana
In Montana, anyone who pays a county's back taxes can take over its tax lien, and if a vacant house isn't redeemed within three years, that lienholder gets a tax deed.
- Nebraska
Nebraska lets a land bank holding the tax certificate on a vacant, abandoned property seek a tax deed after two years, a year sooner than other buyers.
- Nevada
Nevada lets a county tax receiver fast-track the sale of an abandoned property with unpaid taxes, shrinking the owner's time to redeem it from two years to one.
- New Hampshire
New Hampshire lets towns adopt housing ordinances where a petition from at least 10 residents starts the process of getting an unfit dwelling fixed or torn down.
- New Jersey
Any interested party, including a town resident, can ask a New Jersey town's public officer in writing to put a property on its abandoned property list.
- New Mexico
New Mexico's tax department can sell a property for unpaid taxes once they have been delinquent for three years, at a public auction in the county where it sits.
- New York
New York law makes the first-lien mortgage holder inspect, secure and maintain a vacant and abandoned one- to four-family home.
- North Carolina
North Carolina lets a city ask a court to appoint a receiver to fix up, tear down or sell a vacant house whose owner ignores a housing order.
- North Dakota
North Dakota lets a court that finds a mortgaged home abandoned eliminate the owner's redemption period, which otherwise runs 60 days after the sheriff's sale.
- Ohio
Ohio lets a lender ask a court to fast-track the foreclosure of a vacant, abandoned home, and the sale must then be offered within 75 days of the order of sale.
- Oklahoma
Oklahoma lets a city put an unoccupied, unsecured or dilapidated building on an abandoned building list and bill the owner each quarter for what it costs the city.
- Oregon
An Oregon county can, by ordinance, take an abandoned tax-foreclosed house 30 days after deciding it's abandoned, instead of waiting out the two-year redemption.
- Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania lets a neighbor living or working within 2,000 feet of a building empty for a year or more petition a court to appoint a conservator to rehabilitate it.
- Rhode Island
Rhode Island lets anyone owning property within 200 feet of an abandoned, unsafe building ask a state court to make the owner fix it, and a receiver can follow.
- South Carolina
South Carolina lets a city's unfit-dwelling ordinance allow as few as five residents to petition over a house, which can end in repair, closure or demolition.
- South Dakota
South Dakota lets a court cut the redemption period on an abandoned house to as little as sixty days when the mortgage falls under its 180-day redemption law.
- Tennessee
Tennessee's Neighborhood Preservation Act lets a court appoint a receiver to take control of a nuisance property when earlier court orders don't get it fixed.
- Texas
A Texas city may, by ordinance, order a run-down, substandard building that is a hazard to public health and safety to be secured, repaired or demolished.
- Utah
Under Utah's nuisance law, a neighbor whose property is harmed by an unsafe building nearby can sue and ask a court to order the owner to make repairs.
- Vermont
Vermont courts must cut the redemption period to thirty days or less when a foreclosure by judicial sale involves a house that isn't the owner's home or farmland.
- Virginia
Virginia lets a locality with a derelict-building ordinance ask a circuit court to make it, or a land bank, the receiver that repairs a derelict, blighted home.
- Washington
Washington lets a city certify a single-family house as abandoned, mid-foreclosure and a nuisance, which lets the loan servicer go in and secure it.
- West Virginia
West Virginia lets a city authorize its municipal court to put a salvageable, neglected building into receivership with someone able to repair it.
- Wisconsin
Wisconsin lets a lender or the local government ask a foreclosure court to declare a house abandoned, so the sale can happen five weeks after judgment.
- Wyoming
Wyoming lets an owner redeem a house sold for back taxes until a tax deed application is accepted, and buyers can't apply until four years after the sale.
For what to do about a house near you, start with Abandoned house next door? What you can do.