No — in California, you can't go to jail for not paying property taxes. Being behind isn't a crime: the tax is a lien on the house, and the county collects from the property, not you. It normally can't sell a home until its taxes have gone unpaid for five years past the June 30 year-end.

A payment plan can stop the sale at any point along the way. This is California's process, with Los Angeles County examples; other states differ.

Can you go to jail for not paying property taxes in California?

No. Falling behind on a California property-tax bill is not a crime, and the county does not arrest anyone for it. California's property-tax code does carry misdemeanors, but they punish lying to the assessor or stonewalling the assessor — not owing.

If you'd rather hand it off: how our team helps when you haven't filed or can't pay.

• California Revenue and Taxation Code section 461 makes it a misdemeanor to willfully state something you know is false in a statement a tax or assessment is based on. The punishment can be up to six months in county jail, a fine of up to $1,000, or both.
• Section 462 covers refusing an assessor's written request for information, or giving a false name, with the same misdemeanor range.

Everything the county can do about an unpaid bill, adding penalties and eventually selling, is aimed at the house, not at you. If you've been honest with the assessor and simply haven't paid, neither section is about you.

If the tax you're behind on is federal income tax, the jail answer changes. Willful failure to file a federal return is a misdemeanor under 26 U.S.C. §7203, and IRS collection can include a levy on your wages or bank account. If it's IRS income-tax filing you're behind on, I wrote whether you can go to jail for not filing taxes for that reader; if you're several years behind on returns, start with getting current after 3 to 5 unfiled years. Those rules differ from the property-tax rules here.

Outside California the rules are your state's: Maine, for one, still has a statute letting a tax collector jail a taxpayer who, 12 days after a demand, neither pays nor shows goods to cover the tax.

What happens the day after I miss a property-tax payment?

A 10% penalty attaches to an installment still unpaid at 5 p.m. on its delinquency date: December 10 for the first half and April 10 for the second, under California Revenue and Taxation Code §§2617–2618. Until June 30, those 10% penalties, plus Los Angeles County's $10 cost on a late second half, are the whole price of being late.

A California home's bill comes in two halves, and the deadlines are statewide law:

• The first half is due November 1 and goes late at 5 p.m. on December 10. For the current 2026–27 bill, that is Thursday, December 10, 2026.
• The second half is due February 1 and goes late at 5 p.m. on April 10, or the next business day when April 10 falls on a weekend or holiday. For the 2026–27 bill, that is Monday, April 12, 2027.

The penalty is on the unpaid installment, not on your home's value. State law (§2621) lets a county charge up to $55 for the second-installment cost, but no more than its actual cost. The county's own example: on a $2,000 half, being late costs $200 on the first installment and $210 on the second in Los Angeles County.

Telling the county the bill never arrived doesn't help: under §2610.5, failing to receive a tax bill does not relieve the lien or stop the penalties.

What happens if my property taxes are still unpaid after June 30?

The property becomes tax-defaulted at 12:01 a.m. on July 1. Tax-defaulted is the county's label for taxes still unpaid when the fiscal year ends June 30, and from that date a redemption penalty of 1.5% a month (18% a year) starts on the defaulted taxes under §4103. It happens by operation of law, meaning automatically, with nothing filed, under §3436. It is not a sale or a court case.

Paying off everything owed for the defaulted years (the taxes, the penalties and costs, and the redemption penalties) is called redeeming, and it adds a $15 fee under §4102.

Under §2187, every tax, penalty, and interest charge on real property is a lien against the property, and under §2192.1 that lien outranks every other lien, including your mortgage. The county's remedy runs against the house because that is where the debt lives. This post covers the bill on your home and land, which California calls the secured bill because the property itself backs it; bills on boats and business equipment are unsecured and follow a different collection path.

How long before the county can sell my house for unpaid property taxes?

Normally five years. The county gets the power to sell a home (its legal right to auction it) once the taxes have been in default for five years, under §3691. Every exit, redeeming or the five-pay plan, stays open along the way.

The exceptions are narrow:

• Nonresidential commercial property and vacant land run three years.
• A city, county, or nonprofit can request a three-year sale for low-income housing, never of an owner-occupied home.
• Property with a nuisance-abatement lien (a lien a city or county records for what it spent cleaning up or fixing a nuisance on the property) can be sold after three years if that lienholder asks.

If a declared disaster damaged the property and it hasn't been substantially repaired, the five years run from the date of the damage instead (§3691). And the five-year mark is when the county may sell, not a sale date; it must attempt a sale within four years after that (§3692).

A sale never comes out of nowhere, either. California law requires:

• Registered mail before the power to sell (§3365).
• Certified mail 45 to 120 days before a sale to every party of interest, meaning anyone with a recorded stake in the property such as a mortgage lender (§3701).
• For a home that is someone's primary residence, a reasonable effort to contact the owner-occupant in person before the sale (§3704.7).

Los Angeles County goes further as a matter of stated practice: in its 2025 auction letters to the Board of Supervisors, the Treasurer and Tax Collector said it won't attempt to sell an owner-occupied home until someone from the Sheriff's Department and a representative of the county's consumer-affairs or aging-and-disabilities department have met the owner in person. That visit, if it ever comes, is about the sale and your right to redeem, not an arrest. One caveat: failed notice does not void a sale under §3704.7(d), so don't rely on being hard to find.

For scale: the county's April 2025 tax-sale list held 1,569 properties, about 1 for every 1,500 parcels on the Los Angeles County roll, per the January 7, 2025 letter and the Assessor's 2025 assessed-values report. That count was taken before the redemption deadline, so it is a list of properties eligible for sale, not properties sold. That is how far down the road a sale sits.

How does California's five-pay plan work?

The five-pay plan is California's installment plan for defaulted property taxes. You open it with 20% of the redemption amount (plus a $75 fee in Los Angeles County), pay at least another 20% plus interest each year, keep this year's bill paid by April 10, and while you're current there is no sale. That protection is written into §4218.

The plan comes from §§4216–4223, and Los Angeles County calls it the Five-Pay Plan. The mechanics:

• Open it with 20% or more of the redemption amount (§4219), plus the county's fee: $75 in Los Angeles County per the current application (Rev. 09/2026). Other counties set their own fee.
• Pay at least another 20% plus interest each year. Interest runs at 1.5% a month on the unpaid balance (§4221(d)); the plan is not interest-free.
• Keep the current year's taxes paid by April 10 every year. The current bill is not part of the plan, and missing it defaults the plan. In my experience this is the condition that sinks people — not the 20%.
• Open it before 5 p.m. on the last business day before the county obtains the power to sell (§4217(a)). After the five years run, the plan closes and only full payment stops a sale — that full payment is due by the close of business on the last business day before the auction (5 p.m. in Los Angeles County), and a mailed payment has to arrive by then (§3707).

What that costs in practice: on a $6,000 redemption amount, the opening payment is 20%, or $1,200, plus the $75 Los Angeles County fee, so $1,275. The opening check is a fifth of the old balance plus the fee, and interest and this year's bill come on top. If a plan does default, what you paid is credited toward the old taxes, and under Los Angeles County's rules a new plan can't open until July 1 of the following fiscal year. If you have a mortgage, call your lender before opening the plan to confirm it allows the Five-Pay Plan; Los Angeles County's application says so.

What if I can't afford even the plan?

Three things can lighten the load, though none of them erases the old balance: postponement pays this year's bill if you're 62 or older, blind, or disabled and meet its income and equity tests; if your loan has an escrow account and your mortgage payment is no more than 30 days overdue, the servicer must pay escrowed taxes on time; and penalty cancellation removes penalties, not tax. If the old balance is still more than a plan can carry, the remaining choices are selling or refinancing before the five-year mark.

Postponement, if you're 62 or older, blind, or disabled. The State Controller's Property Tax Postponement Program pays the current-year property taxes on your principal residence, deferred. Per the 2026–27 application package, you qualify if you're 62 or older, blind, or disabled; own and live in the home; had 2025 household income of $57,002 or less; have at least 40% equity; and have no reverse mortgage. You reapply every year, and until you're approved you still owe the county.

The deferred taxes accrue 5% simple interest and are secured by a lien, repaid when you sell, move, refinance, or the house passes. The filing window for the 2026–27 program runs October 1, 2026 through February 10, 2027, and funding is limited. It does not pay the past-due years, but covering this year's bill is exactly the part the five-pay plan requires you to keep current, so approval frees cash for the plan payments on the old balance.

Your mortgage servicer, if you have an escrow account. This one is federal law: under 12 CFR 1024.17(k), if your loan requires escrow payments, the servicer must pay escrowed taxes on time, by the deadline to avoid a penalty, as long as your mortgage payment is not more than 30 days overdue, advancing funds if necessary (it can then seek repayment from you). If the county says your tax is delinquent and you have an escrow, I'd call the servicer first.

Penalty cancellation, narrow but free to ask. Under §4985.2, penalties can be canceled when the late payment was due to reasonable cause and circumstances beyond your control, despite ordinary care and without willful neglect; in plain terms, a real reason outside your control, not simply choosing not to pay. The tax itself must be paid by June 30 of the fourth fiscal year after it went delinquent.

Los Angeles County states in writing that it denies requests based on financial circumstances and requests based on not receiving a bill. I'd still ask, since it costs nothing, but I wouldn't build a plan around a yes.

Should I sell the house to escape the tax bill?

No — I wouldn't sell over a balance a plan can carry. Run the numbers before you list anything.

“…would rather sell it and pay off what I owe instead of losing it…”

— a Sacramento homeowner with a paid-off house and about $4,000 in back property taxes, on Avvo's public legal Q&A forum, March 2021

If that $4,000 balance has already gone tax-defaulted and the five-year mark hasn't passed, you could open a five-pay plan for roughly $800 plus the county fee. Current-year taxes aren't eligible for a plan, but the county cannot sell while the plan is paid.

The poster called it foreclosure, but California's process isn't one; it's a tax sale after five years, with a payment plan open until the five-year mark. Selling a house to escape a four-figure tax balance trades the asset for the debt when the law already offers an installment plan sized to the debt.

There are cases where selling or refinancing is the right answer: when the balance has grown past what any plan payment can carry, or when the house needs to be sold anyway. That's a numbers decision before a deadline, and it's the kind of choice our tax advisory and planning team works through with homeowners, on their actual numbers.

What happens to the money if the county sells my house for taxes?

Whatever is left after the tax, costs, and any liens goes to the owner of record or that owner's heirs, but only by a claim filed within one year after the tax deed is recorded, under §4675. The case that shows how this works is Carloss v. County of Alameda (2015) 242 Cal.App.4th 116.

Jerome Carloss's mother lived in a house on Oakland's Magnolia Street for over 50 years and regularly paid her property taxes during most of that time. She failed to pay them in the final years of her life, and in March 2011 Alameda County sold the house at auction to collect the unpaid taxes. She died soon after the sale. Note what is absent from that story: no arrest, no charge, no court date for her. The house was the only thing at risk, the whole way down.

After the county was paid everything it was owed, $64,995 was left from the sale. California's excess-proceeds statute lets the person with title of record, meaning the owner named in the county's recorded documents, or that person's heirs claim that money, and Carloss and other family members filed claims.

The county denied every claim in September 2013 because no recorded deed for the house could be found in the county's records, and the trial court dismissed his suit. On November 12, 2015, the Court of Appeal reversed: a recorded deed is not the only proof of ownership. Other recorded documents, the assessor's records, and testimony can prove it, and the court sent the case back to be heard.

The same rules apply to every California owner:

• After the tax and costs are paid, lienholders of record, such as a mortgage lender, are paid first, and then whatever is left belongs to the person with title of record or that person's heirs (§4675(e)).
• The claim must be filed within one year after the tax collector's deed to the purchaser is recorded (§4675(a)).
• When the excess exceeds $150, the county must mail written notice of the right to claim, no later than 90 days after the sale (§4676).
• You can file the claim yourself, directly with the county, at no cost. Unclaimed money eventually goes to the county's general fund (§4674).

Three practical lessons I take from Carloss: keep your deed and title papers findable; if you help an aging parent with the bills, check the parent's property-tax status now; and if that parent is 62 or older, check postponement before bills go unpaid.

What should I do if I'm behind on property taxes?

The first thing I'd pull is the county's balance and the year the taxes defaulted, on the county's property-tax site or by calling the tax collector. Every decision below depends on how many years the taxes have been in default. Then:

• If the home is short of the five-year mark, open the five-pay plan (20% plus Los Angeles County's $75 fee) and set aside the current bill for April 10. The current bill is the part that sinks plans.
• If you're 62 or older, blind, or disabled and the income and equity tests fit, apply for postponement of this year's bill as early as October 1.
• If you have a mortgage: with an escrow, call the servicer; without one, call the lender before opening a plan.
• If you're thinking of selling, compare it with the plan first.
• If a sale already happened, claim the excess proceeds within one year, directly with the county, at no cost.

What else do homeowners behind on property tax ask?

Behind on your property-tax bill and weighing the five-pay plan against selling or refinancing? N&T Tax & Advisory Group works through the numbers on a delinquent property-tax bill with you: your redemption amount, the plan payment, and whether postponement or a sale fits, by phone or video. Book a call about your property-tax bill.