We buy houses in Brazoria County, TX

Unpaid property taxes can end in a sale run by the Brazoria County Sheriff's Office. It sells on the first Tuesday of the month from 10:00 a.m., in the Commissioners' Courtroom on the courthouse first floor.

The buyer gets a sheriff's deed with no warranty. The tax office calls it an as is, buyer beware sale. Each bidder needs a Statement of No Delinquent Tax, which costs $10.

A sale does not always end your rights. If the house was your homestead, you have two years after the buyer's deed is filed to buy it back (Tex. Tax Code 34.21).

To do that you repay the bid, the recording fee and the taxes the buyer paid. Then you add a premium of 25 percent in the first year or 50 percent in the second.

For a house that was not your homestead or farm land, the window is only 180 days, with a premium of no more than 25 percent (Tex. Tax Code 34.21).

A Brazoria County bill stacks several rates, each per $100 of value. For 2025 the county set 0.262548 for its general fund and 0.042210 for roads and bridges. By our own math, that is 0.304758 for the county alone.

School districts are often the biggest part. The 2025 rates include 1.15 for Alvin ISD, 1.0219 for Angleton ISD and 1.135 for Pearland ISD.

Some homes also sit in a municipal utility district, or MUD. On the 2025 list we counted MUD rates from 0.076 to 1.50. So your total depends a lot on where the house sits.

Texas makes school districts exempt $140,000 of a homestead's value (Tex. Tax Code 11.13). The appraisal district's 2025 sheet also lists extra school exemptions for owners 65 or older or disabled.

In October 2024 the county wrote that it has a severe flood risk. It counted about 139,238 properties, 74 percent of the total, at risk of flooding over the next 30 years.

Outside the cities, it listed 727 repetitive loss properties and 251 severe repetitive loss properties. Some have flooded ten or more times.

Hurricane Beryl hit on July 8, 2024. Six to 10 inches of rain fell across the county, with a high of 11.76 inches.

Since May 2005, new homes in a FEMA flood zone must sit 2 feet above the FEMA flood level. Outside those zones, the county recommends 24 inches above the ground.

The floodplain office also helps owners of older homes with flood insurance. It can send insurers FEMA maps back to 1970 and letters showing the home met the rules when it was built.

Outside city limits, Brazoria County requires a building permit for a manufactured home. It also needs one for any new building over 200 square feet.

In Texas, a manufactured home is personal property unless the owner chooses otherwise. That choice is only open when the home sits on land the owner owns or holds on a long lease (Tex. Occ. Code 1201.2055).

After the state issues the paper, the owner has 60 days to file it in the county property records. The owner must also tell the state and the appraisal district.

Families often prove who inherited land with a sworn affidavit of heirship. Once it has been in the deed records for five years, a court must accept it as early proof of the facts in it (Tex. Est. Code 203.001).

Oil, gas, sulfur and salt have been taken from around Damon Mound, West Columbia and Freeport. A real estate attorney can check whether the minerals under your land were sold off years ago.