The Franklin County tax sale timeline: from delinquent to upset sale to judicial sale

Pennsylvania’s Real Estate Tax Sale Law puts every county on the same basic clock, and Franklin County runs it through the Tax Claim Bureau at 272 North Second Street in Chambersburg, phone 717-261-3884. The dates move a little each year, but the shape does not. Here it is from the first missed bill.

Year one: the bill goes unpaid

County, municipal, and school district real estate taxes are billed by the local collector. What is still unpaid at year end gets returned to the Tax Claim Bureau as delinquent in January. The Bureau adds interest and its own costs and sends a notice of return. Nothing is sold at this stage, but the parcel is now on the Bureau’s books.

Year two: the September upset sale

A parcel that stays delinquent through a second year is listed for the upset sale, which Franklin County holds each September. Before the sale the Bureau has to send notice to the owner by certified mail, post the property, and advertise it, and the owner can pull the parcel off the list by paying the delinquent amount in full or entering an installment agreement with the Bureau before the sale. The upset price is the total of taxes, interest, costs, and any recorded liens, which is why upset sale buyers take the house subject to the mortgage.

Where the Franklin County tax sale list is published

People search for a Franklin County tax sale list PDF every summer, and there is one. The Bureau advertises the upset sale in the Public Opinion, the Record Herald, and the Franklin County Law Journal, and keeps a current list on the county website under the Tax Claim Bureau page, updated as parcels pay off and drop. If your address is on it, you still own the house and can still sell it. If a neighbor’s is, that is not a bargain you can buy from us; we buy from owners, before the sale, not at it.

After the upset sale: the judicial sale

Anything that does not sell at upset goes to the Bureau’s judicial sale, held after a court order that wipes out liens and mortgages, usually two to three months after the September sale. A house that reaches the judicial sale is sold free and clear at a fraction of its value, and the owner’s equity is gone.

The last point you can still sell

Until the gavel falls at the upset sale, you own the house and can sell it. A cash closing before the sale date pays the Tax Claim Bureau from the proceeds and takes the parcel off the list. The practical deadline is earlier than the sale itself: the title company needs a payoff figure from the Bureau and about ten business days, so the call has to come in July or August, not the week of the sale. If the parcel is only in its first delinquent year, there is time to sell at a normal pace, and we can close whenever suits you.

The notices you will see, in order

1. The local tax collector’s bill, then the delinquent reminder.
2. The Tax Claim Bureau notice of return, usually in the spring after the tax year.
3. The certified notice of the upset sale, at least 30 days before the sale, plus the posting on the house and the newspaper advertisement.
4. If unsold, the notice of the judicial sale petition.

Each one is a chance to call. The Franklin County rules that apply to the rest of the sale, from transfer tax to the Register of Wills if the house is in an estate, are on our Franklin County page.