Centre County, PA tax sales

County offices

County notes

• •The Centre County Tax Claim Bureau runs the upset and judicial sales in person on the front lawn of the Willowbank Building at 420 Holmes Street, Bellefonte. There is no online bidding platform, which sets Centre apart from the growing number of Pennsylvania counties that moved to an online auction.
• •Registration is the binding deadline, not the sale date. Preregistration closes ten business days before the sale, and for 2026 the statutory cutoff is 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 8, 2026. Nothing is accepted after that, and postmarks do not count.
• •Each bidder application carries a $25.00 nonrefundable fee, cash or check payable to Centre County Tax Claim Bureau, plus the Act 33 affidavit matching the bidder's form: Individual, Corporate non-LLC, or LLC.
• •Payment is cash, money order or certified check payable to the Tax Claim Bureau of Centre County, in full on sale day and no later than one hour before close of business. No personal checks.
• •Bidding starts at the fixed upset price, and raises must be in multiples of at least $50.00. The bid price already includes realty transfer tax, recording fee and deed filing fee.
• •Nonpayment is punished hard. The bureau bars a defaulting bidder from Centre County sales for five years, and applies an all-or-none rule so failing to finalize one property forfeits every property won that day.
• •Deeds are slow. Recording waits on Court of Common Pleas approval and 30 days of owner notice, and the bureau states the deed will not be filed for at least three months after the sale. Entering the property before the deed is acquired is prohibited.
• •An upset sale buyer also owes the next full year of real estate taxes, beginning the March after the sale, and should contact the municipal tax collector if no bill arrives.
• •Parcels marked with an asterisk on the sale list are owned by deceased individuals, where the bureau notified known next of kin only. Treat those as elevated title risk.
• •The county's published repository list is dominated by mobile homes and similar low-value structures carried over from sales dating back to 2009, so repository inventory here is thin.
• •The 2026 upset sale parcel list had not been posted as of August 9, 2026. The 2025 list is the most recent published and shows most parcels drawing no bid, with upset prices in that year ranging from roughly $764 to about $44,776.

Pennsylvania rules

Redemption

Under the Real Estate Tax Sale Law there is no redemption of any property after the actual sale. The owner's last opportunity is to discharge the tax claim before the sale by paying the claim and interest, any other tax claim or judgment and interest, all accrued unpaid taxes, and the record costs, or a smaller amount the political subdivision agrees to accept. Payment before July 1 of the year following the notice of claim removes the property from the sale list entirely. Payment after that date but before the actual sale still stops the sale, though the parcel and the owner's name may already appear in the advertising.Real Estate Tax Sale Law section 501 - who may pay off a tax claim before sale, and the rule that there is no redemption after the actual sale72 P.S. 5860.501Verified Aug 9, 2026

Deed deposit

The Real Estate Tax Sale Law sets no deposit and no buyer premium. What it does require is pre-registration: anyone intending to bid at an upset or judicial sale must appear and register at the bureau no less than 10 days before the sale, once per scheduled sale, and a county may charge a fee for filing the application. The application names the applicant, and every officer, member and manager if the applicant is not an individual, and carries an affidavit that the applicant owes no delinquent real estate taxes anywhere in the Commonwealth, has no municipal utility bill more than one year outstanding, is not acting for a person barred under section 601(d), and has not let an uncorrected housing code violation stand after conviction in the last three years. A false statement is prosecutable as a second degree misdemeanor. The bureau sends the list of registered bidders to every municipality in the county at least five days before the sale.Real Estate Tax Sale Law section 601 - the upset sale is scheduled no earlier than the second Monday of September and before October 172 P.S. 5860.601Verified Aug 9, 2026

Surplus proceeds

The bureau distributes tax-sale proceeds, after repaying costs advanced by taxing districts and its own 5 percent commission, in this order: Commonwealth tax liens, then the taxing districts in proportion to the taxes due them, then taxing districts or municipal authorities for municipal claims, then mortgagees and other lien holders in order of record priority whether or not the sale discharged them, and last the owner of the property. Before paying anything out the bureau petitions the court of common pleas to confirm the schedule of distribution, and an absolute confirmation is final and nonappealable as to every listed distributee. If no claim for the owner's balance is presented within three years of the sale, that balance goes to the taxing districts pro rata and the county keeps the interest it earned.Real Estate Tax Sale Law section 205 - the five-part distribution priority for tax-sale proceeds and the three-year cutoff on an owner's surplus claim72 P.S. 5860.205Verified Aug 9, 2026

Governing statute

72 P.S. 5860.101 et seq.Real Estate Tax Sale Law section 102 - definitions of "Delinquent", "Actual sale", "County" and "Owner"72 P.S. 5860.102Verified Aug 9, 2026

A tax deed does not convey marketable title. Most buyers file a quiet title action before they can resell or insure the property. See the due diligence guide.

See the full Pennsylvaniarules and every county →