The Sheriff’s Office recently held its first auction of tax-delinquent properties in more than three years, resulting in the sale of 29 properties, as it begins to clear a backlog of more than 1,000 properties previously slated for sale. Housing advocates are worried that tax-delinquent homeowners might be caught off guard if they find their properties going up for sale now because of tax petitions the City of Philadelphia had filed several years ago. There are also concerns among bidders about whether the Sheriff’s Office will be able to handle the additional workload, given existing delays in processing deeds from past sales. In-person tax sales were paused in March 2020 at the onset of the COVID pandemic, then briefly resumed in April 2021 after Sheriff Rochelle Bilal switched to an online platform. That approach was halted when city officials learned that Bilal had circumvented the city’s standard contracting procedures in awarding a no-bid, six-year deal with Bid4Assets without approval from city lawyers. Read more in the Inquirer.
Source: Inquirer; 7/25/2024