In response to the pandemic, we have developed a second automated tax sale system that has been approved by the Illinois Department of Revenue.  The new system which we have named R.A.M.S. 2 (Randomized Auction Management System) will allow us to collect bids from the tax buyers without them having to sit together in a room and place bids on our laptops. 

The procedures leading up to the tax sale will remain the same with regards to registration and tax sale lists.  The procedures after the sale will also remain the same with regards to getting your results from the Treasurer.

The difference between the two systems lies in how the tax sale is conducted.  With the R.A.M.S. 2 system, on the day of the sale we will collect the bids for each registered buyer by having them bring a USB Drive to the tax sale with a file that contains their percentage bids for each parcel.  Once all bids from all the registered tax buyers are loaded into our system, we will process the sale.  Each parcel will be awarded to the lowest bid for a particular parcel.  If there are multiple lowest bids, a random lowest bid is selected.  The processing should only take a few minutes.  You are not required to wait for all tax buyer’s bids to be collected.  As long as the Treasurer allows, you will be free to leave after your bids have been submitted.  You will immediately receive an email confirmation that your bids were submitted.  Attached to the email will be a copy of the original bid file you submitted to us, and a Processed Bids file that will show what bids were successfully imported into our system.  Your bid file may contain parcels that are no longer being offered, so those parcels and bids will not be imported.

We will require there to be only one file on the USB Drive, being the bid file for a particular registered buyer and county.  For those tax buyers that may have multiple separate registrations (if allowed by the Treasurer), we will require a separate USB Drive for each registered buyer and bidder.  Please note, 35 ILCS 200/21-205 states “All bidders are required to personally attend the sale”

We will also require the buyer number assigned by the County to be in the filename for confirmation purposes.  Each registered buyer will receive via email a bid file with an appropriate filename that includes the buyer number.

Please feel free to reach out to us with any questions you may have.