Trust through evidence
How we verify tax-sale information
Tax-sale information changes, and official sources can disagree or publish late. Our job is to show what is known, where it came from, and how certain it is—not to manufacture precision.
1. Start with primary authority
Statutes, state agencies, county treasurers or tax collectors, clerks, and official auction notices come before secondary summaries.
2. Preserve the evidence
Profiles include source links, verification dates, evidence excerpts, and the administering office where available.
3. Label certainty honestly
Confirmed dates are separated from month-only schedules, statutory windows, irregular sales, estimates, and dates not yet announced.
4. Separate ceilings from outcomes
Statutory maximum rates are not presented as expected returns. Scores also consider bidding, competition, timing, capital, and process risk.
5. Correct transparently
Material corrections and methodology changes are documented publicly instead of silently overwritten.
Research Score methodology
How the A–D Research Score is calculated
Every published property on TaxLienSimple gets a 0–100 Research Score, computed directly from the fields we actually hold on that record — nothing is estimated or modeled from comparable properties. The score adds up five components, then reduces the total to a letter grade with a confidence label (High / Medium / Low) based on how much of the underlying data is present. You can see this run live on a real parcel on the Property Reports page.
Whether the record has a situs address, a property type, mapped coordinates, and an assessed value. A parcel missing all four scores near zero here — not guessed, just incomplete.
The spread between the assessed value and the opening bid (bigger spread, higher score), plus a bonus for a lower absolute bid amount. Below a 25% spread, the report adds a critical “thin value-to-bid spread” warning.
Whether the listing is confirmed active inventory (vs. availability-unverified), and whether it has a set auction date, bid deadline, and a working source link.
Certificate/ticket number, redemption window, and sale-history completeness — the fields that tell you whether this is a clean, well-documented record or a thin one.
How many of the report's fields are populated at all, and how recently each was checked against the source.
Strong data on every dimension: mapped, priced, dated, sourced, and a healthy value-to-bid spread.
Solid record with one or two gaps — commonly a missing map point or a moderate spread.
Usable but incomplete — often missing assessed value or auction confirmation. Expect warnings.
Thin record: unverified availability, no economics to evaluate, or multiple missing fields. Treat as a lead to verify, not a ready-to-bid parcel.
Pre-bid risk warnings ride alongside the score, not inside it
Separately from the numeric score, each report can carry risk warnings at three severities — critical (e.g. a thin value-to-bid spread), warning (e.g. incomplete bid economics or unverified availability), and info. A high grade does not mean zero warnings; it means the underlying data is complete enough to trust the warnings that are shown. Always read the warnings, not just the letter.
What verification does not mean
TaxLienSimple is an educational and operational research platform, not legal, tax, or investment advice. Information may change after verification. Always confirm sale dates, registration requirements, property details, title issues, and bidding rules directly with the administering authority before committing capital. The Research Score is a research aid built from owned data fields — it is not an appraisal, a title opinion, or a recommendation.