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Tax Sale Atlas

Sullivan County, PA tax sales

How tax deed sales work in Sullivan County, seat of Laporte: sale calendar, auction platform, over-the-counter lists, and the offices that run each sale.

New to tax sales? Read how Pennsylvania tax sales work or look terms up in the glossary.

Next sale
Tax sale scheduled for September 14, 2026.Monday · 2026
Format
In person
Registration
Pre-registration is mandatory.
County office
570-946-5211
Every displayed fact carries a source badge. Verified Aug 10, 2026 against official county and state pages.How we verify
On this page

How Sullivan County sells delinquent taxes

No tax lien certificate sale

Pennsylvania counties do not sell tax lien certificates to investors. The county Tax Claim Bureau holds the delinquent claim itself and later sells the property.

Tax deed sale

In person
Run by
Sullivan County Tax Claim Bureau
Frequency
annual
Next sale
Tax sale scheduled for September 14, 2026.
Registration
Pre-registration is mandatory.
Sale list
Upset Sale List, tax sale rules and bidder forms
When it runs
Annual upset sale in September. The county Tax Claim page states "The delinquent tax sale is to be held on Monday, September 14, 2026, 10:00AM at the Sullivan County Courthouse." The same page states "The Judicial Tax Sale was cancelled this year."
Registration and deposit

Pre-registration is mandatory. The county page states "Effective August 2021 a bidder must pre-register 10 days before the scheduled tax sale." The Rules for Upset Sale repeat it: "All bidders must be registered 10 days prior to the start of the sale." Registration means filing the Bureau's Bidder Application with a photocopy of photo ID, naming every person who will appear on the deed and how title will be held, plus a notarized Certification of Prospective Tax Sale Bidder from each of those persons. The certification swears the bidder is a US citizen over 18, is not delinquent on real estate taxes to any Pennsylvania taxing district and has no municipal utility bills more than one year outstanding (72 P.S. 5860.619.1), is not a Sullivan County elected official or appointed officer (16 P.S. 1806), and did not own and is not tied to the owner of any property in the sale (72 P.S. 5860.618). Forms go to the Tax Claim Bureau at 245 Muncy Street, PO Box 157, Laporte, PA 18626.

Sale format and venue
The sale is a live, in person auction at the Sullivan County Courthouse in Laporte. The county names no online auction platform and no online bidding, so plan to attend or send a registered representative. Bidding is open auction with the published upset price as the lowest bid accepted. That upset price includes all prior year taxes, current taxes, costs, 2 percent realty transfer tax, a $70.75 recording fee and a $100.00 deed preparation fee. Parcels sell free of county, township or borough and school tax liens only, and the Bureau states that all other liens and judgments become the purchaser's responsibility. Payment is due immediately after the sale by cash, money order, certified check or personal check, and if a personal check does not clear the next highest bidder takes the property. Property is sold as is. There is no redemption after the sale, but the former owner has 60 days to file objections, and no owner may redeem after noon on the day of the sale. Deeds are not filed for at least three months while the court process finishes, then mailed to the purchaser once recorded. The Tax Claim Director may pull any listed parcel at the sale and explain the reason there. Parcels that do not sell may be offered at a continuation of the upset sale or by private sale at any time. Some listings are trailers or structures on leased ground and may carry ground rent owed to the landowner that must be paid before the unit can be moved. The 2026 list ran to roughly 30 parcels, weighted toward vacant acreage, cabins, houses and mobile homes at the Almost Heaven Campground, with estimated sale prices from about $460 to about $42,000.
Source: Sullivan County Assessment and Tax Claim Bureau page, Delinquent Tax Sale and Judicial Tax Sale sections· Verified Aug 10, 2026

Sullivan County tax sale list and auction calendar

For Sullivan County tax sale 2026 searches, use the county-run sources below rather than a copied parcel list, and confirm the parcel, registration cutoff, deposit, and payment deadline against the county before you bid.

  1. Get the advertised list

    Use Upset Sale List, tax sale rules and bidder forms for the current advertised parcels, then recheck it before the auction.

  2. Register to bid

    Pre-registration is mandatory. Full requirements are in the sale card above.

  3. Sale day

    Tax sale scheduled for September 14, 2026. The sale is live and in person; there is no online bidding platform. Confirm the venue and hour with the county office before you go.

  4. Confirm with the office

    If the list, platform, and notice disagree, use Sullivan County Tax Claim Bureau as the source to confirm which parcels are actually offered.

Before you bid in Sullivan County

  1. Start with the live sale list

    Pull the current advertised parcels from Upset Sale List, tax sale rules and bidder forms. Lists can change before the sale, so recheck the county source before you price a parcel.

  2. Confirm registration and deposit

    Pre-registration is mandatory. The county page states "Effective August 2021 a bidder must pre-register 10 days before the scheduled tax sale." The Rules for Upset Sale repeat it: "All bidders must be registered 10 days prior to the start of the sale." Registration means filing the Bureau's Bidder Application with a photocopy of photo ID, naming every person who will appear on the deed and how title will be held, plus a notarized Certification of Prospective Tax Sale Bidder from each of those persons. The certification swears the bidder is a US citizen over 18, is not delinquent on real estate taxes to any Pennsylvania taxing district and has no municipal utility bills more than one year outstanding (72 P.S. 5860.619.1), is not a Sullivan County elected official or appointed officer (16 P.S. 1806), and did not own and is not tied to the owner of any property in the sale (72 P.S. 5860.618). Forms go to the Tax Claim Bureau at 245 Muncy Street, PO Box 157, Laporte, PA 18626.

  3. Check the state rules that change the bid

    Read the Pennsylvania due-diligence checklist before bidding. Redemption, liens that survive a tax deed, title cleanup, and payment deadlines can change what a parcel is worth.

  4. Set a walk-away number

    Work out what the parcel is actually worth with the rural land value estimator, then turn it into a ceiling with the tax deed max-bid calculator.

Over-the-counter (leftover) purchases

Every Real Estate Tax Sale Law county keeps a repository for unsold properties: anything still unsold after a judicial sale is placed there, and the bureau must make the list available to the public during normal office hours. The bureau may, with the written consent of each taxing district where the property sits, set a minimum purchase price and accept any offer at or above it without court approval and without published notice. Consent is deemed given if a district does not respond within 60 days, and a district may require the buyer to appear before its governing body. The buyer files an affidavit with the same information a bidder registration requires. The deed conveys free and clear of all tax and municipal claims, mortgages, liens, charges and estates except separately taxed ground rents, and the bureau records it at the buyer's expense. A former owner may not buy their own property out of the repository. Prices, forms and turnaround are set county by county, so confirm the process with the tax claim bureau.

New to this path? Read how over-the-counter purchases work.

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County offices

Tax sale office

Sullivan County Tax Claim Bureau (listed with Assessment as Sullivan County Assessment and Sullivan County Tax Claim Bureau)

570-946-5211

245 Muncy Street, Suite 105, P.O. Box 157, Laporte, PA 18626

Official website

County notes

  • Susan K. McCarty, CPE serves as both Chief Assessor and Tax Claim Director. Staff listed are Deborah Sterling, Certified Assistant III, and Aaron Wheeler, Field Assessor. The Assessment line is 570-946-5061, Tax Claim is 570-946-5211 and the county main line is 570-946-5201. The Tax Claim email is [email protected].
  • The upset sale list is a dated PDF that the Bureau replaces as parcels are paid off. The 2026 file is stamped "SULLIVAN COUNTY UPSET SALE LIST 2026, last updated 8/7/26", so re-download it from the Tax Claim page immediately before the sale rather than working from a saved copy.
  • Only the upset sale is scheduled for 2026. The county states the judicial sale was cancelled this year, and it publishes no repository list, so ask the Bureau directly about judicial and repository inventory.
  • The Bureau sells a $15.00 tax certificate and a $10.00 tax statement on written request with the owner name and parcel number. Those are title research documents reporting the tax status of a parcel, not purchasable tax liens.
  • The county offers an online delinquent tax payment form. It is a payment channel for owners and is not a bidding platform.
  • Sullivan County's website runs on Squarespace, so links to the sale rules, bidder forms and sale list redirect from the county domain to a squarespace static file host. Both addresses serve the same document.
  • Searches for a Sullivan County online tax sale frequently surface Sullivan County, Tennessee, whose Chancery Court runs an online delinquent tax sale. That is a different county in a different state. Pennsylvania's Sullivan County sells in person at its courthouse in Laporte.
  • Sullivan County is one of Pennsylvania's smallest counties by population, and the annual list is correspondingly small, so inventory is limited and dominated by rural land, camps and mobile homes.

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.
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.
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.
Governing statute
72 P.S. 5860.101 et seq.

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 →

Frequently asked questions

Does Sullivan County, Pennsylvania sell tax liens or tax deeds?

Tax deeds. Pennsylvania sells no tax lien certificates to investors; the County Tax Claim Bureau sells the property itself at a public tax sale.

How often does Sullivan County hold tax deed sales?

Sullivan County holds its tax deed sale once a year. Annual upset sale in September. Each sale is scheduled and advertised in advance, so check the county's tax deed calendar for the next posted date.

I own a property in this sale. Can I stop it?

Often yes, by paying the overdue taxes, interest, and costs before the deadline. Pennsylvania's redemption rule: None after the sale in the 65 Real Estate Tax Sale Law counties; in Philadelphia, 9 months from acknowledgment of the sheriff's deed, and 3 months in Allegheny County and Pittsburgh. Call the Sullivan County Tax Claim Bureau as early as possible for your exact payoff and options; deadlines are strict. Free help: lawhelp.org lists legal aid programs, and consumerfinance.gov lists HUD-approved housing counselors.

Where can I find the Sullivan County tax sale list?

Sullivan County posts its tax sale list at sullivancountypa.gov. Lists go up ahead of each sale and keep changing until the sale date, so confirm every parcel against the county's legal advertisement before you bid.

Verified Aug 10, 2026 against official county and state sources.

Tax Sale Atlas publishes educational information about public tax sale processes. This is not legal, financial, or investment advice. Rules, dates, and fees change; confirm with the county office before you bid.

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