Property Tax Lien Foreclosure History
12 12
2015: lost-to-sale data still being gathered
15 2015 1 1
2016: lost-to-sale data still being gathered
16 2016 4 4
2017: lost-to-sale data still being gathered
17 2017 34 34
2018: lost-to-sale data still being gathered
18 2018 59 59
2019: lost-to-sale data still being gathered
19 2019 2 2
2020: lost-to-sale data still being gathered
20 2020 5 5
2021: lost-to-sale data still being gathered
21 2021 0 0
2022: lost-to-sale data still being gathered
22 2022 1 1
2023: lost-to-sale data still being gathered
23 2023 1 1
2024: lost-to-sale data still being gathered
24 2024 3 3
2025: lost-to-sale data still being gathered
25 2025 Why are 2019–2021 cases mostly still active?
Ohio's COVID-19 emergency orders (beginning March 2020) imposed a foreclosure
moratorium that paused most delinquent tax lien proceedings for over a year.
Cases filed before and during the freeze accumulated in county courts and many
are still working toward a final outcome — either a sheriff sale or a dismissal
once the homeowner resolves the debt.
Why do some rows below show a dash (—)?
Finding out whether a case was lost to sheriff sale, dismissed, or is
still pending requires opening and reading each individual court case
one at a time — it isn't reported anywhere as a simple summary number.
We are actively working through this county-by-county for all Ohio
counties. A dash means we don't have that breakdown yet ,
not that the outcome was zero.
Why does Assessment Ratio have gaps?
The Ohio Department of Taxation only publishes this figure for years
when Athens County underwent its sexennial reappraisal or
triennial update — not every year in between. A dash means no study
was conducted that year, not that the county was accurately assessed.
Metric 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 Treasurer Filed Foreclosures Treasurer Filed Foreclosures
Tax lien foreclosure cases the county Treasurer filed against properties with unpaid property taxes — usually brought by the county Prosecutor on the Treasurer's behalf. Counted from the county's own court records, year by year; the source is linked below this table.
12 1 4 34 59 2 5 0 1 1 3 3rd Party Investor Filed Foreclosures 3rd Party Investor Filed Foreclosures
Foreclosure cases filed by a third-party investor — a private company that bought delinquent tax liens from the county and then went to court to collect on them. Ohio counties may sell tax liens this way under ORC §§5721.30–5721.43, and once sold it is the investor, not the county, that files the case.
— — — — — — — — — — — Lost to Sale Lost to Sale
Cases that ended with the property sold at sheriff's sale — the owner lost the home. This can only be determined by reading each case on the court docket, so a dash means we don't have that breakdown for the year yet, not that the number was zero.
— — — — — — — — — — — Dismissed Dismissed
Cases closed without a sheriff's sale — typically because the owner paid off the delinquent taxes or worked out a payment plan. Also read case by case from the docket.
— — — — — — — — — — — Pending Pending
Cases filed but not yet resolved by a sheriff's sale, dismissal, or other closure — still working their way through the court system. Where the court publishes a case status we use it directly; otherwise this is that year's filings minus the cases lost to sale and dismissed.
— — — — — — — — — — — % Lost % Lost
Lost to Sale divided by Treasurer Filed Foreclosures for the same year, rounded to a whole percent. A case filed one year may not sell until a later one, so read this as that year's rate rather than the eventual fate of that year's exact cases.
— — — — — — — — — — — Median Home Value $117,700 $113,900 $116,500 $122,000 $129,600 $139,100 $150,800 $161,700 $173,800 $185,000 — % Value Change % Value Change
Year-over-year change in the Median Home Value row above, rounded to the nearest whole percent. It is only computed when that year and the one before it both have a value, so it is never carried across a gap in the data.
— -3% 2% 5% 6% 7% 8% 7% 7% 6% — Assessment Ratio Assessment Ratio
How close the county auditor's appraised values are to what homes actually sell for. The Ohio Department of Taxation compares the auditor's appraised value to the real sale price on arm's-length sales and publishes a median ratio for each city and township; this figure combines those into one county number, weighted by each area's number of sales. 100% means appraisals matched sale prices. 75% means the typical home was appraised at about three-quarters of what it sold for; above 100% means the typical home was appraised for more than it sold for. It describes the county as a whole — any individual property can be far off it. (Ohio bills tax on 35% of appraised value; that 35% is fixed by statute and is not what this ratio measures.)
88.68% 86.47% 90.9% 87.09% 83.89% 89.43% 79.68% 78.72% — — —
What This Data Means
Since 2015, 122 Athens County families
have had a tax lien foreclosure filed against their home — each one a
household at risk of losing everything over a debt to the county.
Tax lien foreclosures in Athens County have decreased by 75% since 2015.
Help stop this from happening to more Ohio families — find a petition
signing location near you in Athens County.
↑ Find a signing location in Athens County
About this data: Data obtained from Athens County Common Pleas Court's online case search, reflecting foreclosure cases filed by the Athens County Treasurer, 2015–2025. The county does not use one consistent case type for these filings across all years, so multiple case types were checked to ensure a complete count. Median home value for 2025 is not available: the Census Bureau's American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates (the source for this row) had not yet published that vintage as of this data's retrieval date. Assessment ratio data is not available for 2023-2025: neither of the Ohio Department of Taxation's sales-ratio studies (SRD04 or the archived PS1&2) covers those year(s) for this county.
Source: Athens County Common Pleas Court (Delinquent Tax Foreclosures case type).
These are property tax lien foreclosures only — not mortgage foreclosures.
Assessment ratio: Ohio Department of Taxation, SRD04 — Residential Sales Statistics by Political Subdivision
(2020–present) and PS1&2 — Sales Ratios of Real Property, By Class of Property and County
(2015–2018, archived).
All data is sourced from publicly available government records including
individual county court portals, the U.S. Census Bureau, and the Ohio
Department of Taxation. AxOHTax makes no warranty as to the accuracy of
compiled figures. Users should verify data independently for official
purposes.
