A Lancaster County tax sale is a public auction run by the county’s Tax Claim Bureau to collect unpaid real estate taxes under Pennsylvania’s Real Estate Tax Sale Law of 1947. Properties move through up to three sale stages, each with different rules about what liens survive and what you actually own when the hammer falls. Bargains exist, but so do mortgages that transfer to the buyer, occupants you can’t evict through the usual channels, and title problems that can take years to clear.
The Three Types of Sales and What You Get
The sale stage matters more than any other single factor at a Lancaster County tax sale, because it determines whether the liens on the property follow it to you.
Upset Sale
The upset sale is the first attempt to sell a tax-delinquent property. The minimum bid, called the upset price, covers unpaid taxes, accrued costs, and municipal claims. The catch: you take the property subject to existing mortgages, recorded judgments, and other liens with legal priority over the tax claim. Those obligations transfer to you.1Pennsylvania General Assembly. Real Estate Tax Sale Law
A property with a $5,000 upset price might carry a $150,000 mortgage the new buyer inherits. That is where inexperienced bidders get burned.
Judicial Sale
Properties that don’t sell at upset go to a judicial sale on petition to the Court of Common Pleas. The court orders the property sold free and clear of all tax and municipal claims, mortgages, liens, charges, and estates of any kind, with one exception: ground rents that are separately taxed.1Pennsylvania General Assembly. Real Estate Tax Sale Law That clean title is what makes judicial sales the main draw for investors. Federal tax liens are the significant exception, covered below.
Repository for Unsold Properties
Properties that don’t sell at either auction land in the repository, a standing list the bureau maintains. The law explicitly acknowledges some of these parcels have little or no value. The bureau can accept offers at or above a minimum price, which requires written consent from every taxing district where the property sits; a district that doesn’t respond within 60 days is deemed to have consented.1Pennsylvania General Assembly. Real Estate Tax Sale Law
Repository properties convey free and clear of all liens except separately taxed ground rents, the same title treatment as a judicial sale. Bidders must file the same affidavit used for upset and judicial registration. Some taxing districts require you to appear before the local governing body, so check requirements for the specific municipality. Repository sales often use sealed bids rather than live auctions, and minimum prices can be quite low.
One rule applies at every stage: there is no post-sale redemption by the former owner. Pennsylvania’s Real Estate Tax Sale Law says so directly, which separates Pennsylvania from states that give prior owners months or years to reclaim sold property.
Registering to Bid
Pennsylvania’s Act 33 of 2021 added mandatory pre-registration for upset and judicial sales. You must register with the Tax Claim Bureau at least 10 days before the scheduled sale. The application requires your full legal name, address, phone number, and valid photo ID.2Justia. Pennsylvania Act 33 – Real Estate Tax Sale Law
LLCs must list every member, manager, and anyone with an ownership interest, with business addresses and phone numbers. Corporations and partnerships must list all officers or partners. Every applicant submits a notarized affidavit swearing to three things:
- You don’t owe delinquent real estate taxes to any taxing district in Pennsylvania and have no municipal utility bills more than one year outstanding anywhere in the Commonwealth.
- You aren’t bidding on behalf of someone who is barred from the sale.
- You haven’t engaged in a pattern of uncorrected housing code violations in the three years preceding your application.
Miss the 10-day deadline and you cannot bid at that sale. No waiver, no late filing. Application materials are available at the bureau’s office at 150 N. Queen Street in Lancaster.3Lancaster County, PA – Official Website. Tax Claim Bureau
Researching a Property Before You Bid
The official sale list runs in two local newspapers and the Lancaster Law Review, the county’s designated legal journal. Each listing gives you the parcel number, property description, owner’s name, and approximate upset price. That is a starting point, nothing more.
For upset sales, a title search at the Lancaster County Recorder of Deeds is essential. You need every mortgage, judgment, and lien recorded against the property, because those obligations survive the sale and become yours. Check the Prothonotary’s office for court judgments, and contact the municipality for outstanding water, sewer, and trash bills. A professional title search runs a few hundred dollars. That is trivial compared with discovering a six-figure mortgage after you’ve won the bid.
Judicial sale purchases carry less lien risk because the court order strips most encumbrances, but still check for federal tax liens and separately taxed ground rents, which survive. Inspect the property too. The bureau sells as-is with no warranties on condition or occupancy. Drive by, and research permit and code violation history through the municipality where you can.
Environmental Risk on Industrial or Commercial Parcels
Few tax sale buyers think about contamination. Under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, property owners can be held liable for cleanup costs even if the contamination predates their ownership. A bona fide prospective purchaser defense exists, but qualifying requires conducting “all appropriate inquiries” before closing and taking “reasonable steps” to address known contamination after purchase.4US EPA. Bona Fide Prospective Purchasers
For any property with a commercial or industrial history, including former gas stations, dry cleaners, and manufacturing sites, a Phase I Environmental Site Assessment before bidding is the only way to know what you might be inheriting. A Phase I typically costs $2,000 to $5,000, modest insurance against cleanup liability that can reach six figures.
How the Auction Runs
Lancaster County has moved its tax sales online. The bureau has used GovDeals for its judicial sale and continued upset sale events, allowing bidders to participate remotely rather than in a physical auction room.5Liquidity Services. Lancaster County, PA, Moves Annual Judicial Tax Sale to GovDeals
Properties are listed by parcel number with starting bids at the upset price. A preview period lets you review listings before bidding opens, and some properties get pulled during that window as owners pay off their taxes. Once bidding opens, each property runs until the auction closes and the highest bid wins.
A winning bid is binding. You cannot walk away without consequences. The sale is voided and the property goes back up, but you face potential liability and exclusion from future sales. The pace of online auctions can be deceptive. It is easy to bid on more properties than you can actually pay for, especially when multiple auctions close in sequence.
Paying and Taking the Deed
The law requires full payment on the day of the sale, no later than one hour before close of business, or at another time the bureau designates. The bureau accepts cash, certified checks, and money orders. If you don’t pay in time the sale is voided and the property goes back on the block immediately if possible, or at any continuation of the sale.1Pennsylvania General Assembly. Real Estate Tax Sale Law
Budget beyond the purchase price for recording and transfer taxes. The Lancaster County Recorder of Deeds charges a base recording fee of $71.25 for a deed of up to four pages, with $2.00 for each additional page.6County of Lancaster, Office of Recorder of Deeds. Select Fees Pennsylvania’s state realty transfer tax is 1% of the property’s value, and most Lancaster County municipalities add a local transfer tax, commonly another 1% for an effective total of 2%, though the local rate varies.7Department of Revenue. Realty Transfer Tax
After payment clears, the bureau prepares the deed and records it with the Recorder of Deeds. That typically takes several weeks to a few months depending on auction volume. Once recording is complete, the bureau mails you the original deed. At that point you hold legal title. Legal title and physical possession are two different things.
Clearing Title After the Sale
Expect title insurance companies to balk at insuring a Lancaster County tax sale property. Tax sale deeds function similarly to quitclaim deeds. They convey whatever interest the bureau had authority to transfer, but they don’t guarantee the sale process was flawless. Pennsylvania courts have overturned tax sales where the bureau’s notice to the prior owner was defective, and buyers at those sales lost their properties.
Most title companies won’t issue a policy for two to three years after the sale unless you complete a quiet title action. That is a lawsuit in the Court of Common Pleas asking the court to confirm your ownership and extinguish any competing claims. You must notify every party who might have an interest in the property, including prior owners, lienholders, and heirs, and give them a chance to object. If no one does, or their objections fail, the court issues a decree confirming your title.
An uncontested quiet title action typically costs $1,500 to $5,000 in legal fees and takes a minimum of six months. A contested one costs and takes considerably more. Until you have a decree or enough time passes to satisfy a title company, selling, refinancing, or borrowing against the property will be difficult. Build this expense and the waiting period into your numbers before you bid.
Removing Occupants Takes Ejectment, Not Eviction
If the property is occupied, by the former owner, tenants, or anyone else, you cannot change the locks or file at the local magistrate’s office. Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court confirmed in 2019 that tax sale purchasers have no landlord-tenant relationship with occupants, so the Landlord and Tenant Act’s eviction process does not apply. A magisterial district judge has no jurisdiction.
You must file an ejectment action in the Court of Common Pleas. Ejectment is slower and more expensive than standard eviction. Expect to hire an attorney, pay court filing fees, and wait months for a resolution. A steep auction discount can evaporate quickly once you’re paying legal fees and property taxes on a building you can’t access, so factor this into any bid on an occupied property.
The 120-Day Federal Tax Lien Window
Federal tax liens survive both upset and judicial sales in a particular way. When the IRS has recorded a lien against a property that sells at a tax sale to satisfy a prior lien, the federal government retains a right to redeem the property for 120 days after the sale, or longer if state law allows a longer redemption period. The IRS exercises this right by paying the buyer the sale price plus interest.8Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 7425 – Discharge of Liens
Pennsylvania doesn’t provide a general post-sale redemption period, so the 120-day federal window is what applies. During those four months the IRS can take the property by reimbursing your purchase price. The government rarely does so, but it happens, and any improvements you make in that window aren’t reimbursed. Check federal lien records before bidding. At a judicial sale, the IRS must receive proper notice for its lien to be divested, and even then the 120-day redemption right still applies.