Search Certificate Sales

GET /api/v1/certificate-sales/search

Search the annual county certificate sales — the tax-lien auctions where unpaid-tax certificates are sold to investors. Each row summarizes one county's sale for one tax year: the sale date, the vendor that runs it, how many certificates were offered and sold, the face value moved, the average winning bid rate, and how many were struck to the county. For the individual certificates sold at a sale, use Search Certificates.

Authentication

curl -H "X-API-Key: fltc_test_..." \
  "https://fltaxcerts.com/api/v1/certificate-sales/search?county=polk&tax_year=2023&limit=10"

Query Parameters

Name	Type	Required	Default	Description
county	string | string[]	no	—	County slug(s). Repeatable or CSV.
tax_year	integer	no	—	Tax year of the sale.
vendor	string (≤80 chars)	no	—	Certificate-sale vendor (e.g. lienhub).
sale_after	date (YYYY-MM-DD)	no	—	Only sales on/after this date.
sale_before	date (YYYY-MM-DD)	no	—	Only sales on/before this date.
sort	enum (sale_date_desc, sale_date_asc, year_newest)	no	—	Result ordering.
limit	integer 1-500	no	25	Page size.
offset	integer ≥ 0	no	0	Pagination offset.

Response (200)

List envelope { data: CertificateSale[], pagination, meta }.

{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "csale_polk_2023",
      "county_slug": "polk",
      "county_name": "Polk",
      "tax_year": 2023,
      "sale_date": "2024-06-01",
      "vendor": "lienhub",
      "sale_url": "https://polk.lienhub.com/",
      "certificates_offered": 26240,
      "certificates_sold": 18452,
      "face_value_offered": 41280339.18,
      "face_value_sold": 32117654.02,
      "average_bid_rate": 4.87,
      "struck_to_county": 7788,
      "status": "completed"
    }
  ],
  "pagination": { "limit": 25, "offset": 0, "total": 1, "has_more": false },
  "meta": { "request_id": "req_1234567890abcdef12345", "dataset_status": "live" }
}

status is the auction state — scheduled, in_progress, or completed. Certificates not bid on are struck_to_county and may later appear in Lands Available.

Error Responses

Status	Code	Cause
400	bad_request	Invalid query parameters.
401	unauthorized	Missing or invalid API key.
429	rate_limited	Rate limit exceeded.
500	internal_error	Server error — retry with backoff.