Philadelphia Tax Lien Sale List: Bidding, Costs, and Redemption

The Philadelphia tax lien sale list is published on the Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office property listing page, which links out to Bid4Assets, the online platform where every city sheriff sale now takes place.¹ The list shows every property scheduled for sale because of unpaid city taxes, water and sewer charges, or School District of Philadelphia taxes, and you can search it by address, OPA number, or Book and Writ number.

Finding the list is the easy part. Reading it correctly, and understanding what a winning bid actually commits you to, is where most first-time buyers get into trouble.

What Each Listing Shows

Every property on the sale list carries a details sidebar with four pieces of information you need before you bid: the OPA number (the Office of Property Assessment account number), the property address, the Book and Writ number, and the opening bid.²

The OPA number is what you use to pull the property’s assessed value, zoning, and tax history from the city’s property records. The Book and Writ number is the docket reference for the underlying legal proceeding, and it identifies the property during the auction itself.

The opening bid is the minimum the city will accept to satisfy its claim, but it is not the same as the reserve price. The reserve is the attorney’s upset price plus the sheriff’s costs, and Bid4Assets does not display it. You will only see whether the reserve has been met. A high bid that falls below the undisclosed reserve does not guarantee you win the property.³

Reading the Series Number to Identify the Sale Type

Philadelphia sheriff sales come in two flavors, and the series number on the listing tells you which one you are looking at. Tax sales cover unpaid municipal debt: property taxes, water and sewer, and School District taxes. Mortgage foreclosure sales cover defaulted mortgages.⁴

Tax sale series include the Linebarger 6000 series (funded liens), the Linebarger 2000 and GRB 4000 series (collection properties), and the Revenue Delinquent 0001–0300 series. Mortgage foreclosure sales run in the 301–1000 series.

The distinction matters for two reasons. First, tax sale buyers must complete Sheriff Sale Compliance, meaning the Sheriff’s Office confirms you are current on your own city taxes and filings before settlement. Mortgage foreclosure buyers in the 301–1000 series skip that step because all delinquencies are paid through the Sheriff’s Office as part of those proceedings. Second, tax sales carry a right of redemption for the former owner. Mortgage foreclosure purchases do not.⁴

Registering and Placing a Deposit

Bidding requires a free Bid4Assets account and a pre-auction deposit.⁵ For tax sales, the deposit is $1,500 plus a $35 processing fee, paid by certified check, money order, or wire transfer.³ One deposit covers every auction closing on the same date, and the deposit does not cap your bid amount.

Send the deposit at least a week before bidding opens. Bid4Assets can take up to 48 business hours to acknowledge receipt, and certified checks may need another business day to clear. Late deposits get processed on a best-effort basis with no promise they land in time.⁵

If you owe delinquent taxes to Philadelphia, clear them before you register. The Sheriff’s Office verifies compliance at settlement, and the sale will not close without proof.⁴

One more thing to check on the list before you plan a bid: the Philadelphia Land Bank has priority bidding rights on certain properties, offered at the city’s opening bid. On those listings, no bids from other participants are accepted. The sale list generally flags which properties are subject to Land Bank priority.⁴

The Real Cost of a Winning Bid

Auctions open at 10 a.m. on Bid4Assets.⁴ If you win, the payment clock is short:

10% of the purchase price is due by 5:00 p.m. Eastern on the next business day after the auction.
The remaining balance is due within 15 calendar days from the auction date.

Miss either deadline and you forfeit your deposit and may be banned from future auctions. The second-highest bidder then gets the same 15-day window at their bid price.⁴

Your bid is not your final cost. On top of the purchase price, you owe:

A 10% buyer’s premium, with a $100 minimum on tax sale properties.³
A combined 4.578% realty transfer tax as of July 1, 2025: Philadelphia’s 3.578% rate plus the Commonwealth’s 1%.⁶
Deed recording fees.

A $20,000 winning bid, for example, carries a $2,000 buyer’s premium before you get to transfer tax and recording costs.

Liens That May Survive the Sale

The opening bid on the list tells you nothing about what recorded obligations you may inherit. The answer depends on whether the property is going through an upset sale or a judicial sale.

An upset sale is the standard first-round tax sale. Only the tax liens and municipal claims included in the upset price get wiped out, and only if the purchase price covers those amounts. Mortgages, ground rents, judgment liens, and other recorded obligations survive and become yours.⁷ Buying a $5,000 upset sale property that still carries a $150,000 mortgage is a documented risk.

A judicial sale happens after a property fails to sell at upset and a court orders a second sale. Judicial sales convey property free and clear of nearly all liens, mortgages, charges, and estates, with separately taxed ground rents as the main exception.⁷ Bids tend to run higher because the title risk is lower.

Federal tax liens sit in their own category. A local tax sale does not automatically extinguish a federal tax lien. If the IRS was not given proper notice of the sale, the lien stays attached to the property after you buy it.⁸ Search federal tax lien records against the current owner before you bid.

The Nine-Month Redemption Window

Winning and paying does not always end the story. Under Pennsylvania law, the former owner has nine months from the date the sheriff’s deed is acknowledged to redeem the property by paying all back taxes plus what you paid.⁹

The trigger is occupancy. Redemption applies only if the property was owner-occupied within 90 days before the sale. If the property was unoccupied or abandoned, there is no right of redemption.⁴ The Sheriff’s Office warns buyers not to sink money into renovations during the redemption window, because those funds are not recoverable if the former owner redeems. On a redemption-eligible property, wait out the nine months before you invest in improvements.

Removing Occupants Takes Court Action

If someone is still living in the property when you take title, you cannot simply change the locks. Philadelphia requires a court-supervised ejectment. It starts with a 30-day written notice to vacate. If the occupant stays, you file a Complaint in Ejectment with a 20-Day Notice to Defend, arrange service, wait the response period, and, if there is no response, file for default judgment and then obtain a Writ of Possession. The writ requires $325 in certified funds paid to the Sheriff’s Office to schedule the physical eviction.

At a minimum this runs two months, and longer if the occupant contests.¹⁰ Court filing and service fees stack on top of the $325 writ fee. If title issues linger and you need a quiet title action, publication costs alone typically run $1,000 to $2,000.

Due Diligence Before You Bid

The sale list is the starting point, not the whole picture. Before placing a bid on any Philadelphia tax lien property:

Run a title search for mortgages, judgment liens, and federal tax liens that could survive the sale.
Confirm whether the sale is an upset or judicial sale, since that controls what gets cleared.
Check whether the property carries a Land Bank priority bid that would block you entirely.
Find out whether the property was owner-occupied within 90 days of the sale, which controls the redemption right.
Visit the property. Tax sale properties are sold as-is, with no inspection and no warranty.
Add up the full cost: bid amount, 10% buyer’s premium, 4.578% transfer tax, recording fees, potential ejectment costs, and any surviving liens.

The opening bid on the list is almost never what it actually costs to own the property.

1
Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office. Property Listing
2
Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office. Sale-Help
3
Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office. Frequently Asked Questions About Online Sheriff Sales
4
Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office. Overview of the Sheriff Sale Process
5
Bid4Assets. Philadelphia County Sheriff Real Property Foreclosure Auctions
6
City of Philadelphia. Important Changes to Recording Fees and Transfer Tax Starting July 1, 2025
7
Pennsylvania General Assembly. Real Estate Tax Sale Law
8
Internal Revenue Service. Federal Tax Liens
9
Pennsylvania General Assembly. Pennsylvania Statutes Title 53 PS Municipal and Quasi-Municipal Corporations 7293 – Redemption
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Philadelphia Sheriff’s Office. Eviction Process After Sheriff Sale