Rhode Island Tax Lien Investment Question

[John Dag]

I am well familiar with the general procedures of tax lien investment from years of purchasing Tax lien certs in Colorado. But I live in Rhode Island now and I am having trouble understanding one particular aspect of the RI bid/deed process. As I understand it, in RI they don't bid down interest rates (like in AZ) , or bid a premium (like in CO), but that competitive bidding is structured around bidding down (starting at 100%) the interest in the property that the bidder is willing to accept. A summary from the website of a RI attorney:

*****How do tax sales work? Tax sales are held in the form of auctions. The winning bidder is NOT the person willing to pay the most money, but rather the person willing to receive the smallest percentage of ownership. For instance, $5,000 may be owed to a city or town in unpaid taxes, interest and legal fees. The city or town may then sell the property at auction for the $5,000 – no more and no less.

If there is only one bidder, that person will have bought a 100 percent interest in the property. If there are competing bidders, the person willing to accept the smallest percentage interest in the property wins the auction. For instance, a person might successfully bid a 60 percent interest in the property. He or she would get the 60 percent interest and the remaining 40 percent interest would remain with the original owner.*****

That is all simple and clean as long as the property is redeemed before a Deed is issued. But what happens if the property is not redeemed and a Tax Deed is issued, in the example above does the Holder of the tax Deed only get a 60% interest in the property? Or, more sanely, is the percentage interest in the property bid only a device to shrink the interest rate yield, and an unredeemed Tax Deed would confer 100% ownership?