Caldwell County tax sale, November 3 2026: what the records show

The sale runs at 10:00 a.m. on Tuesday November 3 2026, online. Nine items were posted. Three have already been withdrawn. Of the six remaining, four are vacant land. Everything below comes from the county's own published sale list and from the Texas Property Tax Code. None of it requires anything you cannot look up yourself before Tuesday.

The thing that costs the most and gets checked the least

A tax sale in Texas does not end when the gavel falls. Under Texas Property Tax Code 34.21, the former owner keeps a right of redemption after the sale, and the length of that right depends on what the property is.

For residence homestead or agricultural property, the owner has two years from the date the purchaser's deed is filed for record. If they redeem in the first year they pay your bid plus a redemption premium of 25 percent of the aggregate total. In the second year the premium is 50 percent.

For everything else the period is 180 days, and the premium payable to a purchaser who is not a taxing unit is capped at 25 percent.

The practical consequence is that two bidders can buy at the same sale on the same morning and one of them owns the land outright in six months while the other is holding a position that can be unwound for almost two years. The difference is the property's classification, not the bid.

Item 8 on this list is 122.28 acres out of the Guadalupe College Survey, Abstract 15, at 9077 S. Hwy 183 near Lockhart, with a minimum bid of $266,943.08 against an adjudged value of $1,666,860. A 122 acre tract in Caldwell County is a strong candidate for an agricultural appraisal, which would put it in the two year category rather than the 180 day one. We have not confirmed its exemption status, and that is exactly the point: it is confirmable from the appraisal district before Tuesday, and on a quarter million dollar bid it is the first thing we would check.

Your bid is not your cost

Three items on this list carry language putting the purchaser on the hook for taxes that are not part of the judgment.

Item 7, part of Lot 3, Block 1, Josey's North Addition at 415 Kelly St in Luling, has a minimum bid of $9,516.41 and is marked subject to 2024 and 2025 taxes. Item 5 at 217 Willow Ave and item 6 at 1655 E. Pierce St are each marked subject to 2025 taxes.

On a nine thousand dollar lot, two years of carried over taxes is not a rounding error. The published minimum bid is the opening number, not the all in number, and the difference is knowable in advance from the account record.

Read the legal description, not the acreage

Item 8 is described as 122.28 acres out of a 153.00 acre tract, excepting three smaller tracts.

Any time a parcel is carved out of a larger tract with exceptions, the questions that follow are the same ones that kill land deals generally. Where do the excepted tracts sit, and does one of them hold the frontage. Whether the remainder has recorded legal access to a public road, or only the practical ability to drive across somebody else's ground. Whether an easement exists in the deed records or merely exists in fact.

At a tax sale you cannot walk the property, you cannot get a survey, and you are buying whatever the legal description actually describes. The deed records answer most of this and they are open before the sale.

Three were already pulled

Suits 22-T-9933, 23-T-0026 and 25-0001TXB are marked withdrawn.

That is roughly a third of the list gone before the sale opens, and anyone who spent the weekend researching those three spent it for nothing. Withdrawals are normal, they happen when the owner pays or works out an arrangement, and they are the reason it is worth checking the list again the day before rather than working from the version posted three weeks earlier.

What we would check before bidding on any of these

• Classification and exemption status, because it decides whether the redemption window is 180 days or two years.
• Total tax exposure, including any years not covered by the judgment.
• Recorded legal access, especially on anything described as a portion of a larger tract.
• Flood zone and whether a regulatory floodway crosses the parcel, which is a different map layer from the floodplain and in practice means you do not build.
• Septic feasibility under 30 TAC 285.4 for anything outside a sewer service area, which requires half an acre with public water and a full acre without.
• Plat status and any recorded restrictions.

Sources and limits

The property details above are from the Caldwell County Appraisal District's published Sheriff's Tax Sale list for the November 3 2026 sale. The redemption rules are Texas Property Tax Code 34.21.

This is records research, not legal advice, and we have no interest in any property on this list. Figures and status can change up to the sale, so verify against the county's current list before you bid. Where we have not confirmed something, we have said so.