Does an Ontario municipality sell tax sale properties by public tender, auction, or both?

Ontario's rules for municipal tax sales allow a municipality to proceed by either public tender or public auction, so both methods exist as options under the framework. In practice, though, the overwhelming majority of Ontario municipalities today use the public tender process - sealed written bids submitted by a deadline - rather than a live auction where bidders compete verbally in real time.

The two methods work quite differently for a prospective buyer. A tender is a one-shot written bid, submitted without knowing what others have offered, and the winner is determined once bids are opened after the deadline passes. An auction, by contrast, involves bidders responding to each other in real time at a scheduled event. Because tender is so much more common in Ontario, most buyers researching a specific property should expect to be dealing with a written submission process rather than an in-person bidding event, though it is worth confirming which method a particular municipality is actually using for a given sale.

Check the specific tender or sale notice for the property you are interested in to confirm which method applies before you prepare your bid.