Pennsylvania law, for title research

Pennsylvania tax deed sales: upset sales can keep recorded liens, judicial sales clear them

Every rule below is quoted from the Real Estate Tax Sale Law, Act 542 of 1947 or another official source, linked and checked on the date shown. General information, not legal advice.

Is Pennsylvania a tax deed state or a tax lien state?

The sales in the Real Estate Tax Sale Law transfer the land and end in a deed from the county's tax claim bureau. Taxes are a first lien under section 301, but Article VI sells the parcel, not a lien certificate. Two other sections let someone other than the owner act on a claim short of a sale. Section 316 lets a taxing district assign its portion of a claim. Section 501 lets a lien creditor, an interested person, or a disinterested person with the lienholding subdivision's approval pay the claim, which discharges it, and enter the resulting certificate as a judgment with the priority of the taxes.

So a search can turn up an assignee of a claim, or a judgment holder with the priority of the taxes. Neither is a deed to the land.

How does a parcel reach a Pennsylvania tax sale?

The statute sets a default calendar. Taxes count as delinquent on December 31. The collector returns the parcel to the bureau by the last day of April, or an earlier date the county fixes, and the bureau mails notice of the claim by July 31. The claim becomes absolute on January 1 if it is still unpaid and no exceptions were filed. The upset sale is then scheduled no earlier than the second Monday of September and before October 1.

Payment before July 1 of the year after the notice keeps the parcel out of the advertisement. Payment after that date still stops the sale if it arrives before the actual sale. The bureau may also accept an instalment agreement. In a county that has enacted the option in section 502.1, it may extend the period for an owner-occupied home by up to 12 months on a finding of severe hardship.

Which Pennsylvania tax sale clears the liens?

The answer depends on the type of sale, so the type comes first on any parcel:

• Upset sale. Taxes and municipal claims included in the upset price are divested if the purchase money covers them and the costs. Title passes subject to every recorded obligation, claim, lien, estate, mortgage, ground rent and Commonwealth tax lien not included in that price, with two exceptions below.
• Judicial sale. The buyer takes an absolute title free and clear of tax and municipal claims, mortgages, liens, charges and estates, except separately taxed ground rents. Section 612 provides no redemption right.
• Private sale. The deed conveys title free of tax claims and tax judgments. The section says nothing broader about mortgages.
• Repository sale. The property passes free and clear on the same terms as a judicial sale, again except separately taxed ground rents.

An upset sale can therefore leave a recorded mortgage on the land. Section 607(g) says a confirmed sale passes good and valid title free of liens, except such liens as the act specifically saves. Section 609, titled Nondivestiture of Liens, describes the ones that stay.

Two provisions cut the other way on an upset sale. A municipal claim on the property before August 1 is divested if the taxing district or authority fails to give the bureau its amount. And on corporate property, if the bureau gives the required notice and the Department of Revenue misses its deadline for a proof of claim, the Commonwealth lien is forever discharged.

What must a bidder do and pay at an upset sale?

No sale happens without a bid equal to the upset price. That price adds Commonwealth tax liens, the claim and its interest, other tax claims and judgments, accrued taxes including the current year, municipal claims, and record and sale costs. The whole purchase money is due on the sale date, no later than an hour before close of business unless the bureau sets another time that day. If the money is not paid, the sale is voided and the parcel goes back up.

A bidder also has steps of its own. Anyone intending to bid at an upset or judicial sale must appear and register at the bureau at least 10 days before it, with an application and an affidavit. A county may charge a registration fee, and a county that has adopted a demolition fund may collect a fee of up to 250 dollars from the buyer on top of the price. A successful bidder must also show, within 20 days, no delinquent real estate taxes to the taxing districts where the property sits and no municipal utility bills more than a year overdue.

When does the buyer get the deed?

An upset sale needs the court first. The bureau files a consolidated return within 60 days of the sale, and the court may confirm it nisi within 30 days of presentation. Owners and lien creditors then have 30 days to object. If no one does, the prothonotary enters absolute confirmation, and if objections are overruled, the court enters it. The bureau's deed follows, in fee simple, in the bureau's name as trustee grantor, and it is recorded before delivery at the buyer's cost.

On a judicial sale, which the court orders in advance, deeds are exchanged no sooner than 20 days and no later than 45 days after the sale.

Can a Pennsylvania upset sale be attacked later?

Objections before absolute confirmation may question the regularity or legality of the bureau's proceedings, but not the legality of the taxes. After absolute confirmation, section 607(g) closes inquiry in equity or civil proceedings, except as to the giving of notice, the time of the sale, or the time of the petition for an order of sale.

Notice is one of the questions left open, and if the mailed or published notice of the return is defective or late, section 607(b.1) has the court enter an order nunc pro tunc for cause and, on proof of prejudice, allow objections. The act requires several layers of notice before the sale: newspapers and the legal journal, restricted delivery mail with a return receipt, first class mail if no receipt comes back, posting on the parcel, and personal service on an owner occupant. Act 27 of 2026, approved July 12, 2026, added section 619.2, in effect 60 days after approval: an owner may file a designation form naming next of kin or a representative, and notices the act requires for the owner then go to that designated individual as well. If mail goes unsigned or unanswered, section 607.1 requires reasonable efforts to find the person, including a search of assessment, deed and prothonotary records, with a note in the property file.

What happens to a parcel nobody buys?

Two routes follow a failed upset sale. The bureau may petition for a judicial sale, and must do so at a taxing district's written direction or if 10 months pass with no petition and no private sale. It may also agree to a private sale at a price it approves, and must do so on a taxing district's written instructions, whether or not judicial proceedings have begun. Notice follows, with 45 days for an interested person to ask the court to disapprove. If a judicial sale also fails, the parcel goes to the repository for unsold properties, where the bureau can accept an offer at a minimum price with the taxing districts' consent and no court approval.

The former owner has no right to buy at a judicial sale, at a private sale or from the repository. If the parcel remains unsold after the upset sale, though, the bureau may accept full payment from the owner, and the claims are discharged.

Who gets the money from a Pennsylvania tax sale?

After a 5% commission and repayment of advanced costs, section 205 pays Commonwealth tax liens included in the price or reached by a judicial sale, then the taxing districts, then municipal claims, then mortgagees and other lien holders of record in order of priority, whether or not the sale discharged them, and last the owner. The bureau petitions the court to confirm the schedule first. A balance the owner does not claim within 3 years of the sale goes to the taxing districts.

How do Philadelphia, Allegheny County and Pittsburgh differ?

The Real Estate Tax Sale Law defines a county as second class A through eighth class. Its title also leaves out city taxes of first, second and second class A cities, first class school districts, and school districts in second class A cities. The Census Bureau's 2007 description of Pennsylvania governments lists Philadelphia as first class, Allegheny as the second class county, Pittsburgh as the second class city and Scranton as second class A, so check who holds the claim on a parcel in any of them.

The Municipal Claim and Tax Lien Law, Act 153 of 1923, has several sale routes, and the title result differs by route:

• Sale on a writ, section 31. Mortgages, ground rents and estates recorded before any tax other than the current year's accrued are not disturbed, unless a prior lien is also discharged.
• Petition after no sufficient bid, section 31. The buyer takes absolute title free of claims, liens, mortgages, charges and estates, subject only to redemption.
• First class county, section 31.1. After judgment and a decree, the sale comes at least a year later, free and clear and not subject to any right of redemption.
• First and second class cities and second class counties, section 31.2. The buyer takes absolute title free of claims, liens, mortgages, ground rents, charges and estates, subject only to redemption. A challenge must be filed within 3 months of the deed's acknowledgment.

Where redemption applies, the owner or a party whose lien or estate was discharged may redeem under section 32 for 9 months from acknowledgment of the sheriff's deed, or 3 months in a second class city or county. Vacant property has no redemption after that acknowledgment, and the section counts a parcel as vacant unless the same household lived there for at least 90 days before the sale and still does on the acknowledgment date.

Act 153 is not confined to those places. Section 39.5 lets tax claim bureaus in the several counties adopt its procedures alongside the Real Estate Tax Sale Law, so check the claim docket and sale record to see which procedure a sale used.

A second class city also has the Second Class City Treasurer's Sale and Collection Act, Act 171 of 1984. That sale carries a 90-day redemption, with an added 15% of the price when a buyer is displaced, and its deed gives title equivalent to a sheriff's sale.

What a title search checks on a Pennsylvania tax sale parcel

Auction title research starts by naming the sale and the statute behind it, because the lien result and any redemption period follow from that. On an upset sale it lists the recorded mortgages, liens, estates and ground rents and compares them with what the upset price covered. On a judicial sale it compares the parties named in the rule with the owners and lienholders of record. It also reads the claim docket, the confirmation record and the recorded bureau or sheriff's deed. Whether a defect in notice affects the title is a question for a Pennsylvania attorney; the report shows the record it turns on.

The Pennsylvania tax sale rules on this page, with their sources

Sources: Sections 102 and 201; Title of Act 542; U.S. Census Bureau, 2007 Census of Governments, Pennsylvania; Section 301; Sections 102 and 306; Section 308; Act 27 of 2026; Section 311; Section 501(a); Sections 102 and 501(c); Section 501(a) and (b); Section 316(a); Section 603; Section 503.1(a); Section 601(a); Section 602; Section 601(a)(3); Section 607.1(a); Section 605, upset price; Section 605, unreported claims; Section 304; Section 602(h); Section 607(b.1); Sections 501-A and 502-A; Section 631(b); Section 606; Section 609; Section 607(a) and (c); Section 607(d); Section 607(g); Section 608; Section 610; Section 612(a); Section 619(a); Section 616; Section 613(a); Section 615; Sections 626 and 627(a); Section 627(b); Section 618; Section 619.1(a); Sections 601(d) and 619(b), (c); Section 205(c) to (e); Section 205(f); Act 153, section 31, writ sale; Act 153, section 31, petition sale; Act 153, section 31.1; Act 153, section 31.2; Act 153, section 31.2(b); Act 153, section 32(a); Act 153, section 32(c); Act 153, section 39.3; Act 153, section 39.5; Act 171, section 201 and 301; Act 171, section 304; Act 171, section 307. Each row links the section it summarizes.

Questions people ask

More on how Pennsylvania property law shapes a title search: title research in Pennsylvania.