Property that Lane County took for unpaid taxes and sold may have been worth more than the tax bill, and the difference is the subject of a proposed class settlement. Former owners, heirs and lienholders of Lane County properties whose redemption period ended between October 12, 2017 and December 30, 2025 have until February 22, 2027 to submit a claim. The court has not yet approved the deal.
When a county keeps more than the tax bill
The case is Martin Lynch et al. v. Multnomah County et al., No. 3:23-cv-01502, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon. It alleges that Oregon counties took tax-foreclosed properties and then sold or kept them without returning surplus equity, the gap between a property’s sale price or market value and the unpaid taxes, fees and costs.
The theory comes from the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Tyler v. Hennepin County, 598 U.S. 631. The Oregon Department of Revenue’s summary says the justices ruled 9-0 for Geraldine Tyler, who owed about $15,000 in taxes, interest and penalties on a Minneapolis condominium. The county sold it for $40,000 and kept the $25,000 difference.
The Court held that the government cannot take more property than the debt owed. The ruling gave little guidance on how surplus payments should be structured or timed, the department notes, which is the gap that lawsuits like this one are filling in Oregon.
Lane County denies wrongdoing, according to the settlement website. The deal is a proposed settlement between the class and Lane County, and payments are distributed only if the court approves it and after any appeals.
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Oregon’s rule before the lawsuit
Under the state guidance, Oregon counties were not required to return surplus proceeds from a tax foreclosure sale to the former owner, and no process existed for doing so. After a county recovered what it was owed plus additional costs, it could send the remainder to taxing districts, including itself, under ORS 275.275(1)(d).
The recoverable extra costs listed in the same statute include the redemption penalty and fee, property maintenance and supervision, and legal costs. In Multnomah County, sending the leftover to taxing districts was mandatory, the department says. The guidance describes no enacted change in Oregon law.
That history is why the class is wide. It reaches owners, and the heirs and successors of owners, who held an ownership interest in or a valid lien on property foreclosed on for unpaid real property taxes in Lane County, with the redemption period expiring in the window of just over eight years.
Lienholders are in the class too, because the definition reaches anyone with a valid lien on a foreclosed property. That widens the group beyond the people who lived in the homes.
What a neighboring county already agreed to pay
The same lawsuit produced an earlier deal with Multnomah County. Multnomah County announced on September 9, 2025 that it had agreed on June 25, 2025 to pay about $3.5 million into a settlement fund, equal to all surplus proceeds the county received since 2017 plus interest.
Multnomah’s announcement describes the lawsuit as an effort to recover surplus proceeds collected by Multnomah and other Oregon counties. Lane County is one of those other counties, and the settlement with it is a separate agreement with its own class, deadlines and hearing date.
Kroll Settlement Administration runs that claims process, and Kroll is also the administrator for the Lane County deal, with an address at PO Box 225391, New York, NY 10150-5391 and a phone line at (833) 453-3598. The Lane County settlement site lists no fund total.
Multnomah’s payment was tied to surplus the county itself received. The Lane County complaint uses the same yardstick, the difference between what a property brought in or was worth and what was owed on it, so each parcel’s own numbers decide what a claim is about.
Three dates before any check
The opt-out and objection deadline is November 24, 2026, and the Final Approval Hearing is December 2, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. Pacific. The claim form is due online by 11:59 p.m. Pacific on Monday, February 22, 2027, or postmarked by that date.
The claim deadline falls nearly twelve weeks after the hearing, so the form can be filed before or after the judge rules. The November 24 date is a separate decision, because opting out is made before the hearing and is not a way to file a claim.
The practical hurdle is proof of interest. A family that lost a house in 2018 may need the deed, tax statements or foreclosure notices to show who held title when the redemption period expired. Heirs have a further question about which relative is the right claimant, and the site covers heirs and successors.
The administrator is the first call for those questions. If the court declines to approve the settlement, no payments would be made, which is why the November and December dates matter to anyone considering opting out.
Was a Lane County house lost in the family, and who files for it?
A Lane County foreclosure claim can turn on records the family may not hold, such as who owned the property when the redemption period ended. The February 22, 2027 form deadline arrives before anyone knows whether the court will approve the deal.
The Settlement & Refund Recovery System includes the four-date rule for reading a settlement notice, so the November 24 opt-out date, the December 2 hearing and the February 22 claim form stay separate. A step-by-step filing walkthrough and a claim log and payment tracker hold the paperwork for a property claim in one place.
Get the four-date notice rule and claim tracker for foreclosure surplus claims →
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This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.
