What a Tax Sale Overages Course Should Teach (and How to Judge One)

Updated September 2026. General education, not legal advice. Results vary and no income is guaranteed.

Search for a tax sale overages course and you will find a dozen of them, most promising a lot and explaining little. The scepticism you see on forums is fair: people call the courses "word salad", ask why anyone would teach a profitable business instead of just doing it, and wonder whether the whole thing is a pyramid held up by affiliate commissions. Those are the right questions. This guide is a checklist for answering them about any course, including ours.

What a course must actually teach

Overage recovery — finding surplus funds or excess proceeds left after a tax sale or foreclosure and helping the former owner claim them — is a research and paperwork business. A course that does not teach the following seven things is selling motivation, not a method.

1. Where the lists are and how to read them

County treasurers, tax collectors and clerks publish overage lists in different places under different names, and an upcoming-auction calendar is not a surplus report. You should finish the course able to locate an official list in a county you have never worked, tell what date it describes, and preserve the source. Our free lesson on how to find overage lists is the standard we hold ourselves to.

2. The difference between sale types

A California tax-defaulted sale, a Florida tax deed sale and a mortgage foreclosure produce overages held by different offices under different statutes with different deadlines. If a course treats them as one thing, its students will file the wrong form with the wrong office. See tax liens, tax deeds and foreclosure auctions for what the distinction changes.

3. Verification before outreach

Balance, claim status, lien priority and the filing deadline all need confirming before anyone writes a letter. A large figure on a spreadsheet is a lead to investigate, not a case. The course should show you how to check each of these against the county's own records.

4. The paperwork, in signing order

This is the number-one question beginners ask and the one most courses skip. A complete claim package typically includes a written contingency fee agreement, a limited power of attorney or the county's authorised-agent form, the county's claim form, a notarised affidavit, and proof of identity and ownership, with additional authority documents for trusts, estates and deceased owners. You should see real examples of each and understand why they are signed in the order they are.

5. State rules on fees and representation

Some states cap what a non-attorney may charge, some require registration, and some do not permit a non-attorney to act for a claimant at all. California's Revenue and Taxation Code 4675 requires proof that the claimant was told the amount, the source, and their right to file for free. A course that claims its method "works in every state" has not read the statutes.

6. Outreach that does not look like a scam

The former owner has usually already thrown away one official notice. Your letter has to identify a private business, state the source of the funds, give the person a way to verify it independently, and tell them plainly they can file themselves. A course should teach that letter, not a pressure script.

7. What happens after you file

Counties ask for more evidence, sit on packets for months, and deny claims with missing authority documents. The course should prepare you for the follow-through, including how to keep an evidence trail that survives a second reviewer. Our overage recovery process lesson shows the whole arc from research to a documented outcome.

Red flags

• Income promises. Any specific dollar figure, "six figures", or "in your first 30 days" language. Recovery timelines are set by counties, not by the student.
• "Works anywhere." Fee caps and representation rules differ by state; some states are closed to non-attorneys.
• No named instructor or verifiable track record. Look for a real name, a business you can check with the Better Business Bureau, and evidence the instructor still does the work.
• Vague or hidden refund terms. You should be able to read the refund policy and the guarantee terms before checkout, in plain English.
• Upsells and affiliate tiers. If the money is made by recruiting other students rather than recovering funds, you have found the pyramid people warn about.
• Nothing to evaluate for free. A course confident in its method will show you part of it before asking you to pay.

"Why would anyone teach this instead of just doing it?"

Because the two are not in competition. There are more overages created every month across thousands of counties than any single team can pursue, and most are never claimed at all. Grant Moreland has recovered overages through his firm, KGM Group, since 2018; Overage Acquisition, Inc. is a separate training company founded in 2024 to teach the process. Both are accredited with the BBB, where you can read reviews we did not write. The recovery business keeps running; the training exists because more opportunities exist than one person can work.

How Overage Acquisition Master Training measures up

Judged against the checklist above, here is what the Master Training includes and on what terms, so you can compare it fairly with anything else:

• Self-paced video modules covering find, verify, locate and contact, claim, and get paid, plus a module on tools to automate and scale, including using AI to read county documents.
• Ready-to-use templates and documents for the claim package and the outreach that precedes it.
• Access to real lead sources and a research workflow built around official county records.
• 1-on-1 coaching with Grant and the Overage Acquisition team while you work your first cases, with ongoing support after that.
• Course access and updates for the life of the program. "Lifetime" refers to the life of the program, not the purchaser; the Terms of Service explain what happens if the program is discontinued.

Price and terms. $985 as one payment, or three monthly payments of $349 ($1,047 total). The 60-day coaching guarantee is not a money-back guarantee: complete the lessons and apply the process for 60 days, and if you have not identified at least three overage cases worth pursuing, email us with evidence of your work and we will provide additional one-to-one pipeline coaching until you do. A full refund is available within seven days of purchase only before any program access. The Refund Policy sets out the details; read it before you buy.

What you can evaluate for free. The 24-minute training plays as soon as you enter your name and email, five sample lessons cut from the actual course need no login, and the Learning Center lessons linked throughout this article are the same research standards taught inside. If those do not convince you the method is real, do not enrol.

Questions to ask before you pay for any course

• Can I see the actual claim documents I will be filing, and are they current?
• Which states does the method work in today, and where does it not?
• What is the refund policy, word for word, and what does the guarantee actually promise?
• Who is the instructor, does the BBB know them, and do they still do the work?
• What does a realistic first six months look like in hours and in outcomes?

A course that answers those five plainly is worth considering. One that answers with a countdown timer is not. Our FAQ gives our own answers, including the honest one about timelines: results vary, and this is slow, careful work.

Overage Acquisition, Inc. provides training. Grant Moreland's recovery business, KGM Group, assists former property owners with claims. This article is general education and does not establish anyone's entitlement to funds or authorise legal representation. Procedures, fee rules and deadlines depend on the jurisdiction. See our Earnings Disclaimer.