Tax Repository Purchase & Tax Assessment Appeal (PA)

[Kevin Sobilo]

In Pennsylvania when a property doesn't sell at the Judicial Tax Sale (Free & Clear Sale), it goes on a list (Repository List) where it can be purchases anytime for a nominal price. When the sale is complete, the tax assessment by law should be changed to be the purchase price until the next reassessment or until improvements have been made triggering a reassessment of that property.

In some areas, they don't automatically change the assessment even though its required by law. They force the buyer to go through the tax appeal process and that usually causes the buyer to pay at least 1 years worth of taxes at the full rate before getting them substantially reduced.

Further, I suspect they purposefully delay completing these types of sales until after the deadline to apply for a tax assessment appeal.

My question is once I have made the bid and they have cashed the check for my offer, do I have "equitable title" and does that give me standing to appeal the assessment even before the sale closes and I have title to the property? The taxing bodies each have to approve the offer, which taxes time, but they are only legally allowed to say no to the offer if I owe delinquent taxes or have had my landlording license revoked in that municipality. Neither of those things is true, so the should not be able to deny me.