McKay, Leo H.

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The1949 Amendments to the Pennsylvania Real Estate Tax Sale Act of 1947

Penn State Dickinson Law: IDEAS

Volume 54 Issue 1 Dickinson Law Review - Volume 54, 1949-1950 10-1-1949 The1949 Amendments to the Pennsylvania Real Estate Tax Sale Act of 1947 Leo H. McKay Follow this and additional works at: https://ideas.dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/dlra Recommended Citation Leo H. McKay, The1949 Amendments to the Pennsylvania Real Estate Tax Sale Act of 1947, 54 DICK. L. REV. 40 (1949). Available at: https://ideas.dickinsonlaw.psu.edu/dlra/vol54/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Reviews at Dickinson Law IDEAS. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dickinson Law Review by an authorized editor of Dickinson Law IDEAS. For more information, please contact lja10@psu.edu. DICKINSON LAW REVIEWTHE 1949 AMENDMENTS TO THE PENNSYLVANIAREAL ESTATE TAX SALE ACT OF 1947ByLEo H. McKAY*In a recent article,' the writer compared the Pennsylvania tax sale procedureunder the existing law with the procedure set up under the Real Estate Tax SaleAct of 1947.2The Act of 1947 was amended so liberally by the 1949 legislature that a re-appraisal of the Act, as amended, is believed to be timely. This is particularly truebecause one of the amendments$ authorizes counties which heretofore were barredbecause of the limitation of time contained in the original Act,' to accept The newAct.The present article will endeavor to outline and evaluate the 1949 amend-ments, and suggest the course to be followed in future amendments to the Act.Act No. 242, approved May 2, 1949, changes the date of mailing registeredmail notice of the return and entry of claim to not later than July 31st. It also changesthe time when the one year period of redemption begins to run, to August 1st,5although the corresponding change in date of sale to August 15th failed to pass,with the result that there is a one year period of redemption ending August 1st,while the sale is required to be held the second Monday of July. This discrepancyshould be corrected by the 1951 legislature. Meanwhile the date of sale shouldprobably be treated as directory only, and the sale held after August 1st. It extendsthe time of returning previous claims, notices thereof, and transferring them fromthe treasurer's office to August 31, 1949 and validates notices and transfers prev-iously made.Act No. 477 increases the county's allowance for collection from 2% to4% for four years from the effective date of the act, i.e., September 1, 1949. Italso pLrmits the Bureau, when acting as sequestrator, to lease a property to aformer owner or one in his family receiving public assistance for what he receives*A.B., Allegheny College, 1916; LL.B., University of Pennsylvania, 1921; District Attorney,Mercer County, 1928-1931; County Solicitor, 1943-1 The Old and the New Tax Sale Procedure, March, 1949, Dickinson Law Review.2 Act of 1947, July 7, P.L. 1368; 72 P.S. 58603 Act No. 484.4 Acceptance was required during January, 1948.5 The amendment actually only provides that the notice shall state that "on August first the oneyear period of redemption shall commence or has commenced to run." Section 501 of the original Actstill provides that the property may be redeemed within one year after July 1st. However, thelater date required to be set forth in the notice would probably govern and it would seem that anowner may redeem at any time prior to August 1st.LEGISLATIONfrom the public agency for that purpose, and bars public sales of property oc-cupied by such persons.Act No. 848, permits additional counties to accept the act hereafter by resolutionadopted during the month of January of any year, and sets up the dates when thetreasurer shall transfer tax claims to the Bureau, or taxing districts shall transferclaims in the prothonotary's office not reduced to judgment, as the first Mondayof June following the acceptance. It fixes the period when the commissioners turnover county-owned tax properties to the Bureau as within one year after acceptanceand the period within which to sell such land as within two years after acceptance.It extends the power of the Bureau to set aside or reduce a claim for any reason"not involving a question which could have been raised by an appeal provided forby law." It also authorizes the Court of Common Pleas to stay tax sales in anypolitical subdivision for one year upon the joint petition of the taxing authoritiesof the subdivision and the county commissioners. It provides that the Bureaushall not sell property which it holds as agent for other taxing districts (i.e., taxowned property turned over to the Bureau by the county) when it is occupied bypersons receiving assistance from any public agency, and provides that notice ofsuch occupancy shall be given the Bureau by the county. Finally, Act No. 484authorizes the county commissioners, at a sale under order of court free of liens,to bid it in for $1.00, and thereafter to lease it, use it for county purposes, orsell it in the same manner as other real property owned by the county in fee simple.Act No. 36 validates sales by county commissioners of land which they shouldhave turned over to the Bureau.The net result of the 1949 amendments has been to strengthen and improvethe Act. Granting to the Bureau broader power to set aside or reduce defectiveclaims will tend to purge the records of defective claims and to eliminate futurequestions as to the validity of tax titles founded upon them. Giving discretionarypowers to courts to postpone sales will prevent undue hardship to taxpayers indepression periods. Restraining the sale of tax properties when occupied by formerowners receiving public assistance is a concession to humanitarian, at the expenseof administrative, considerations.On the other hand, the Act still has weaknesses which should be correctedby further amendment. For one thing, the provision for continuance when pur-chasers do not bid a property at a public sale at an upset price should be carefullyreconsidered and re-drawn. Under the procedure for public sales, as the Act nowstands, the Bureau fixes an upset price, and if this price is not bid at the sale, thesale is continued from month to month for three months. During the year afterthe first exposure to sale, it can be sold at private sale, but if it is not so sold, itmust be put up for public sale, free and divested of liens, pursuant to a petitionand order of court with abstract of title attached. Under the 1949 amendment, atthis final salt the county commissioners may bid it in for $1.00, and later sell itDICKINSON LAW REVIEWas other county-owned property is sold-viz., after another order of court andadvertisement once a week for three weeks in two newspapers, as required by theCounty Code. This amendment does not meet the need for revision.The whole procedure for sales after the failure to receive the upset priceat the first sale is still too complicated and unduly expensive. It may be unobjec-tionable when a valuable property, encumbered by a mortgage, is the subject ofthe sale, but it is unrealistic if not absurd wen a relatively worthless vacant lotis involved. The fact is that very few encumbered properties are sold for taxes.Practically all vacant lots are unencumbered. The common reason why propertiesdo not attract purchasers at tax sale is that nobody wants to buy them because theyaren't worth the upset price. Hundreds of small worthless vacant lots are nowowned by countius for this reason.The procedure for selling this type of unencumbered property should besimplified. Title to these unwanted properties should not be taken by the countyat all. Instead the Bureau should retain them until purchasers can be found. Thewriter suggests that the Act be amended to make the proceedings for sale underorder of court free of liens optional instead of mandatory, and to permit theBureau to continue generally a public sale where the upset price is not bid, andthereafter to sell the property at any time for whatever it will bring after only oneadditional advertisement.Future amendments, however, should be limited. Amendments creating ex-ceptions, and amendments changing one date without changing other dates, de-pendent upon the first date, tend to destroy the Act. All proposed amendmentsshould be cleared through one body, such as the Local Government Commission,and that body should approve only amendments that simplify the Act or remedyfaults in it that are disclosed through experience and then only if the proposals areconsistent with the other provisions of the Act.

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The1949 Amendments to the Pennsylvania Real Estate Tax Sale Act of 1947

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