Pennsylvania Has Two Tax Sale Statutes With Opposite Answers - and Vacancy Decides Which One Pays

Pennsylvania is the only state in this series where the answer changes depending on which courthouse the sale ran through. Two statutes govern tax sales, they were written twenty-four years apart, and on the question of whether a purchaser can be redeemed out they say opposite things. One of them pays a purchaser for insurance and necessary expenses at ten per cent. The other says there is no redemption at all. And the dividing line that decides whether the paying one applies is whether the house was occupied - a question answered by inspection, on two specific dates.

The 1947 Act: No Redemption, Full Stop

The Real Estate Tax Sale Law, the Act of 7 July 1947, P.L. 1368, No. 542, governs county tax claim bureau sales across most of Pennsylvania. Section 607 settles the position after an upset or judicial sale in a single sentence: "There shall be no period of redemption after such sale and the sale shall be deemed to pass a good and valid title to the purchaser, free from any liens or encumbrances whatsoever, except such liens as are hereafter specifically saved, and in all respects as valid and effective as if acquired by a sheriff's deed." That sentence was put in its current form by the amendment of 3 July 1986, P.L. 351, No. 81.

The act says the same thing twice more. The pre-sale notice provisions require the bureau's notice to "state that there shall be no redemption after the actual sale." And a separate subsection provides flatly: "There shall be no redemption of any property after the actual sale thereof."

Section 607 also narrows what can be challenged afterwards. The proceedings of the bureau "shall not thereafter be inquired into judicially in equity or by civil proceedings by the person in whose name such property was sold, by a grantee or assignee, by any lien creditor or by any other person, except with respect to the giving of notice under the act, to the time of holding the sale, or to the time of petitioning the court for an order of sale." Notice and timing remain contestable; the rest does not.

The consequence for this page is short. In a 1947 Act county there is no redemption, therefore no redemption price, therefore no preservation costs to recover - and equally nobody who can take the property back. Every dollar spent is an owner's dollar on an owned asset, exactly as in Oklahoma.

The 1923 Act: Redemption, and a Cost Clause

The Municipal Claims and Tax Liens Act, the Act of 16 May 1923, P.L. 207, No. 153, governs sales on municipal claims and is the operative statute in Philadelphia and in Allegheny County. Its section 32 - 53 P.S. § 7293 - creates the redemption right the 1947 act refuses.

Subsection (a) gives it to "the owner of any property sold under a tax or municipal claim, or his assignees, or any party whose lien or estate has been discharged thereby," and sets two different clocks. Nine months from the date of the acknowledgment of the sheriff's deed where the property is not in a city of the second class, a county of the second class, or a municipality within one. Three months where it is. That split is recent: the subsection was amended on 5 July 2023, P.L. 22, No. 4, and a compiler's note records that the amendment applies to sheriff's sales conducted on or after its effective date.

What the redeeming party pays is itemised in the same subsection:

• The amount bid at the sale
• The cost of drawing, acknowledging and recording the sheriff's deed
• The amount of all taxes and municipal claims, whether or not entered as liens, if actually paid
• The principal and interest of estates and encumbrances not discharged by the sale and actually paid
• "The insurance upon the property, and other charges and necessary expenses of the property, actually paid, less rents or other income therefrom"
• A sum equal to interest at ten per centum per annum on each of those payments, from the time each was made

That fifth line is Pennsylvania's answer to the Texas "costs" definition and the Alabama "preservation improvements" definition - broader in wording than either, and narrower in two respects. It reaches only what was "actually paid," so an accrued but unpaid invoice is outside it. And it is net: "less rents or other income therefrom." A purchaser who collects rent during the redemption period reduces their own claim pound for pound.

The ten per cent runs from the time of each payment rather than from the sale, which rewards keeping payment dates as well as amounts. Subsection (b) supplies the procedure: the person entitled to redeem petitions the court setting out the facts and their readiness to pay, the court grants a rule to show cause why the purchaser should not reconvey, and on payment or tender enforces the rule by attachment.

Where several parties want to redeem, subsection (a) ranks them. If both the owner and a creditor wish to redeem, the owner may do so only by paying the creditor's claim in full. Among creditors the one lowest in lien at the time of sale has the prior right, on paying the claim of the one higher in lien, and the chain runs through the whole structure in both directions within the same nine or three months.

Vacancy Removes the Right Entirely

Subsection (c) is the provision that matters most to anyone who works on empty buildings. "Notwithstanding any other provision of law to the contrary, in any city, township, borough or incorporated town, there shall be no redemption of vacant property by any person after the date of the acknowledgment of the sheriff's deed therefor."

And the definition is built as a presumption of vacancy: "For the purposes of this subsection, property shall be deemed to be 'vacant property' unless it was continuously occupied by the same individual or basic family unit as a residence for at least ninety days prior to the date of the sale and continues to be so occupied on the date of the acknowledgment of the sheriff's deed therefor."

Read the structure rather than the label. The property is vacant unless four things are true together: the occupancy was continuous; it was by the same individual or basic family unit throughout; it was as a residence; and it ran for at least ninety days before the sale and was still running at acknowledgment. A house with people in it that fails any one of those limbs is still "vacant property" for this subsection.

That makes occupancy a question with a redemption right attached to it, determined by evidence at two separate moments - ninety days before the sale, and at acknowledgment of the deed. It is an unusual case where documented occupancy inspections, dated and photographed, bear directly on whether anyone can take the property back. For purchasers, a vacant property in a 1923 Act jurisdiction behaves like a 1947 Act property: no redemption, and therefore nothing to recover because nothing is at risk.

Which Statute, and Therefore Which Answer

One scope note on currency. The 1947 act was amended as recently as 12 July 2026, P.L. 391, No. 27, which added a new Article VII-A dealing with title to unseated lands, severed subsurface oil, gas and mineral estates, redemption claims on unseated land, and a restatement of the five-year limitation period from the act of 3 April 1804. That article concerns unseated land and subsurface title rather than preservation costs, but it is a reminder that this statute is still moving.

What This Means If You Do the Work

• Establish first which statute the sale ran under; in most Pennsylvania counties it is the 1947 Act and there is no redemption at all
• In Philadelphia and Allegheny County the 1923 Act applies, and since the 2023 amendment the Allegheny clock is three months rather than nine
• Where the 1923 Act applies, insurance and "other charges and necessary expenses of the property" are recoverable at ten per cent - but only as actually paid, and net of any rents collected
• Keep payment dates, not just amounts: the ten per cent runs from the time of each payment
• Do not collect rent casually during a redemption period without accounting for it; income reduces the claim directly
• On a vacant property the 1923 Act redemption right disappears under § 32(c), which makes documented occupancy evidence at ninety days before the sale and at acknowledgment unusually consequential
• Under the 1947 Act the only things still open to challenge after the sale are notice, the time of holding the sale, and the time of petitioning for the order of sale

For the states that reimburse the work through a redemption price, see Texas, where only itemised costs are allowed and Alabama, which defines preservation improvements and pays eight per cent. For the states that reimburse nothing, see Ohio, which sells a lien rather than a house, Oklahoma, where redemption ends at the auction and Louisiana, which moved to tax lien certificates in 2026. Pennsylvania's other route into a neglected building is the Act 135 conservatorship; the chapter 7 position is in the Pennsylvania homestead page. On the municipal side see Philadelphia's vacant property licence and Pittsburgh's vacant building ordinance. Field capability is on our Pennsylvania page.