Connecticut

Connecticut is run by its towns rather than its counties: county government was abolished in 1960, and all 169 towns keep their own land records, their own assessor and their own mill rate, so two identical houses a mile apart can sit under different rules and different bills.

Land follows the same pattern, with farm, forest and open-space parcels classified under PA 490, enacted in 1963, which assesses them on what they are used for rather than what they could be sold for; forest land needs 25 contiguous acres and a certified forester’s report.

That classification is personal to the owner and does not run with the land, so it ends when the property is sold or transferred and the new owner has to apply again from scratch.

Selling or converting classified land inside ten years triggers a conveyance tax penalty that starts at ten per cent of the sale price in the first year and steps down a point a year until it disappears after the tenth, and a lien for it sits on the land records for that whole decade.

Connecticut is also one of only two states, with Vermont, that still allows strict foreclosure: where a court finds no equity above the debt, there is no auction at all.

The court instead sets a “law day” for the owner and each junior lienholder to pay in full, and title vests in the lender the day after the last one passes.

That makes the deadline absolute in a way an advertised sale is not, a deficiency judgment can still follow, and an owner who lets the day go by has nothing left to sell.