Philadelphia Sheriff sale inheritance/estate tax issue

[Yuriy Skripnichenko]

Hi all.

I ran into a problem that probably the person who lost the property at Tax Sale was deceased at the time. Therefore, there is a possible Inheritance Tax Issue on this.

So now we have to do a search on the person who lost the property at the tax sale and hopefully she is alive. Otherwise current owner will have to pay estate tax which is 15% of the tax sale amount or the property value at the time of sale (whichever is grater)

Title company told me that it is a new thing that came up a few months back and the state is trying to collect all the estate taxes.

Does any have experience dealing with this? How long does it take for the state to actually issue the bill if the search comes back that previous owner was deceased?