446.16  Bid — purchaser — bidder registration fee.
  1.  The person who offers to pay the total amount due, which is a lien on any parcel, for the smallest percentage of the parcel is the purchaser, and when the purchaser designates the percentage of any parcel for which the purchaser will pay the total amount due, the percentage thus designated shall give the person an undivided interest upon the issuance of a treasurer’s deed, as provided in chapter 448. If two or more persons have placed an equal bid and the bids are the smallest percentage offered, the county treasurer shall use a random selection process to select the bidder to whom a certificate of purchase will be issued. The percentage that may be designated by any purchaser under this subsection shall not be less than one percent.
  2.  The treasurer may establish and collect a reasonable registration fee from each registered bidder at the tax sale. The fee shall not be assessed against a county or municipality. The total of the fees collected shall not exceed the total costs of the tax sale. Registration fees collected shall be deposited in the general fund of the county.
  3.  The delinquent tax lien transfers with the tax sale certificate, whether held by the county or purchased by an individual, through assignment or direct purchase at the tax sale. The delinquent tax sale lien expires when the tax sale certificate expires.
  4.  Only those persons as defined in section 4.1 are authorized to register to bid or to bid at the tax sale or to own a tax sale certificate by purchase, assignment, or otherwise. To be authorized to register to bid or to bid at a tax sale or to own a tax sale certificate, a person, other than an individual, must have a federal tax identification number and either a designation of agent for service of process on file with the secretary of state or a verified statement meeting the requirements of chapter 547 on file with the county recorder of the county in which the person wishes to register to bid or to bid at tax sale or of the county where the property that is the subject of the tax sale certificate is located.
[C51, §501; R60, §766; C73, §876; C97, §1423; C24, 27, 31, 35, 39, §7253; C46, 50, 54, 58, 62, 66, 71, 73, 75, 77, 79, 81, §446.16]
90 Acts, ch 1203, §1; 91 Acts, ch 191, §68; 92 Acts, ch 1016, §25; 95 Acts, ch 57, §17; 97 Acts, ch 121, §19; 2004 Acts, ch 1092, §8; 2005 Acts, ch 34, §15, 26; 2009 Acts, ch 11, §1, 2
2005 amendment to subsection 1 takes effect April 19, 2005, and applies to parcels sold at tax sales occurring on or after June 1, 2005; 2005 Acts, ch 34, §26 
Subsection 4 takes effect March 13, 2009, and applies to tax sales held on or after June 1, 2009; 2009 Acts, ch 11, §2