Kern County Tax-Default Property Auction — 2026

Office: Kern County Treasurer-Tax Collector (Jordan Kaufman)

Address: 1115 Truxtun Avenue, 2nd Floor, Bakersfield, CA 93301-4639

Phone: (661) 868-3490 | Fax: (661) 868-3409

Email: TTC@KernCounty.com

Website: https://www.kcttc.co.kern.ca.us

GovEase — same platform as LA County (govease.com)

Kern's auction storefront is reached via the TTC site (www.kcttc.co.kern.ca.us) which links registrants into the GovEase live-auction page

GovEase Client Services: 1-769-208-5050, support@govease.com

No in-person component

Note: Kern previously ran on Bid4Assets, then on Grant Street's DeedAuction (kern.mytaxsale.com) starting March 2015; it has since moved to GovEase. The kern.mytaxsale.com URL still resolves but is no longer the active sale site — investors land on the wrong page constantly

Primary sale: March 9–11, 2026, opening 8:00 AM PST on March 9, 2026 (per published Notice of Public Auction, Resolution #2025-235)

Reoffer / unsold-parcel sale: June 1, 2026, opening 8:00 AM PST, for any parcel that did not sell at the March auction (within the 90-day window allowed under R&T § 3692)

Historical pattern: one March primary sale and follow-on reoffer sales within 90 days

Registration: open year-round through GovEase; no county-side registration window

For a specific sale, bidders must be GovEase-registered AND have funded deposit before the deposit cutoff

Deposit: $5,000 refundable, due electronically by 5:00 PM PST Friday, February 27, 2026 for the March 2026 sale

Applied to purchase price for winners; refunded within ~10 business days for non-winners

Accepted deposit forms: electronic only (ACH/wire) submitted through the auction site

Full balance due within 5 business days of auction close

Accepted payment forms for the balance: certified funds — cashier's check, wire transfer, postal money order, or cash

Default consequence: failure to consummate within the period set by the tax collector results in forfeiture of the $5,000 deposit and all rights to the property, with the deposit going to the county general fund (NOT toward delinquent taxes); right of redemption then revives (R&T § 3693.1)

Additional buyer costs at recording:

California documentary transfer tax: $0.55 per $500 of purchase price (or fraction thereof)

Recording fees per Kern Assessor-Recorder fee schedule

The tax deed itself is recorded by the county

No Kern city surtax on documentary transfer tax (Bakersfield does not add a city transfer tax surcharge)

~970 parcels advertised for the March 9–11, 2026 sale (per published tax-sale notice)

Mix: heavily skewed toward vacant land and rural/desert parcels (Kern is California's third-largest county by area), with a smaller share of improved residential lots

Minimum bid range: wide — sample minimums in the 2026 list run from roughly $3,800 (small desert/vacant lots) up into the tens of thousands for improved parcels (R&T § 3698.5)

Bid increment: set per-parcel by the auction platform; verify on the GovEase Kern auction page

Owner redemption deadline: 5:00 PM PST the Friday before the sale opens — for the March 2026 sale that was Friday, March 6, 2026

Surviving liens (R&T § 3712): future-roll tax/assessment installments, liens of non-consenting taxing agencies, certain special assessments not included in the redemption amount, and easements/water rights/recorded restrictions. Mortgages, judgments, child-support liens are extinguished

Rescission window: petition Board of Supervisors within 1 year of recordation of tax deed (R&T § 3731); court action within 1 year of Board's determination (R&T § 3725)

Excess proceeds: 1-year claim window from recordation of the tax collector's deed; postmark must be on or before the one-year anniversary; no exceptions (R&T § 4675). "Excess proceeds" = sale price above the tax/assessment liens and costs, only if greater than $150

Kern-specific quirk: the TTC funnels everything through kcttc.co.kern.ca.us as the public-facing URL, but the actual bidding happens on GovEase — newcomers consistently arrive at the wrong page. Also, deposits close ~10 days before the sale, so a same-week registration is impossible.

No material platform changes from 2025 — Kern continued on GovEase for both the 2025 and 2026 March sales

Deposit unchanged at $5,000; payment window unchanged at 5 business days

Schedule shifted by one day vs. 2025 (March 10–12, 2025 → March 9–11, 2026); reoffer date set to June 1, 2026

A new Power-to-Sell list dated April 28, 2026 was posted, signaling parcels likely to appear in the 2027 cycle

Wiring the balance to the wrong destination or missing the 5-business-day deadline — under R&T § 3693.1 the $5,000 deposit is forfeited to the county general fund (NOT credited against the taxes), and the right of redemption revives. The bidder loses both the property AND the deposit

Assuming the tax deed wipes out all liens. Easements, water rights, recorded restrictions, future-roll taxes, and non-consenting-agency liens survive the sale (R&T § 3712)

Trying to file an excess-proceeds claim after the 1-year post-recordation deadline — R&T § 4675 has no exceptions and the postmark controls

Going to kern.mytaxsale.com — that URL is dead. Active auction is on GovEase

County Assessor-Recorder: https://www.kerncounty.com/government/departments/assessor-recorder

Assessor's Parcel Map search: https://www.kerncounty.com/government/departments/assessor-recorder/property/assessor-parcel-map-search

Kern County Public GIS viewer: https://maps.kerncounty.com/H5/index.html?viewer=KCPublic

Kern County GEODAT open-data portal: https://geodat-kernco.opendata.arcgis.com/

Property Tax Portal (tax status / bills): https://www.kerncounty.com/services/property-land-and-taxes/property-tax-portal

2026 auction information & general tax-sale page: https://www.kcttc.co.kern.ca.us/index.cfm?fuseaction=kcttcinternet.showGeneralTaxSaleInfo

Tax sale brochure (terms PDF): https://www.kcttc.co.kern.ca.us/Forms/taxsalebrochure.pdf

Power-to-Sell listing (next-cycle inventory), dated April 28, 2026: https://www.kcttc.co.kern.ca.us/Forms/ptslist.pdf

GovEase registration: https://www.govease.com (Client Services 1-769-208-5050)

GovEase Kern training/help: https://govease.helpscoutdocs.com/article/274-kern-county-ca-online-training

Excess proceeds / Tax-Defaulted Property Sales landing: https://www.kerncounty.com/services/property-land-and-taxes/property-tax-portal/tax-defaulted-property-sales