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Pennsylvania · PA

Sell your land in Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania sells delinquent land in three stages, and which stage a parcel came through determines what the buyer actually got. The other question that follows almost every acre here is what lies underneath it: coal, oil, and gas were severed from the surface generations ago, and Pennsylvania has no statute that gives them back.

Tax sale type
Tax deed
Redemption period
9 months (repository sales)
Rate on redemption
10% penalty
Closings handled by
Title company

Figures describe Pennsylvania generally. Counties administer their own sales and their own calendars — your county treasurer is the only source for a payoff figure or a sale date you can act on.

Local detail

What actually matters about land in Pennsylvania

Three tiers of tax sale, three outcomes

The Real Estate Tax Sale Law, Act 542 of 1947 at 72 P.S. § 5860.101 and following, runs delinquent property through three stages. An upset sale under § 5860.605 requires a minimum bid covering taxes, municipal claims, and costs, and the purchaser takes subject to every mortgage, lien, and estate the upset price did not cover. If nothing sells, the bureau petitions the court under § 5860.610 for a judicial sale, which conveys free and clear of divested liens. What still does not sell lands in the repository under § 5860.626, where any bid may be made subject to approval by the taxing districts. Philadelphia and Allegheny County operate under separate statutes.

Pennsylvania has no dormant mineral act

Ohio and West Virginia let a surface owner reclaim long-abandoned mineral interests. Pennsylvania does not. The Dormant Oil and Gas Act, Act 115 of 2006 at 58 P.S. § 701.1 and following, only lets a court create a trust and appoint a trustee to lease on behalf of unknown or unlocatable owners; title never vests in the surface owner. A severed interest from the 1880s is still owned by somebody. The wording of the old deed matters too: under the Dunham rule, reaffirmed in Butler v. Charles Powers Estate in 2013, a reservation of 'minerals' that does not name oil or natural gas is presumed not to include them.

Clean and Green carries a seven-year rollback

Act 319 of 1974, the Pennsylvania Farmland and Forest Land Assessment Act at 72 P.S. § 5490.1 and following, assesses enrolled land at use value rather than market value in three categories: agricultural use, agricultural reserve, and forest reserve. Enrollment generally takes ten acres, or less if agricultural use land can produce at least $2,000 a year in farm income. A change to an ineligible use triggers roll-back taxes for the year of the change and the six preceding years — seven total — plus six percent interest. A sale that keeps the qualifying use does not by itself break enrollment. County assessment offices administer the program, and their application and split-off procedures differ.

Act 13 did not preempt local zoning

Act 13 of 2012 rewrote Pennsylvania's oil and gas law at 58 Pa.C.S., and part of it tried to force uniform municipal treatment of gas operations. In Robinson Township v. Commonwealth, decided in 2013, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck those provisions down, resting on the Environmental Rights Amendment at Article I, Section 27 of the state constitution. Municipal zoning of well pads, compressors, and impoundments survives, so the answer varies township by township. Act 13 also left Pennsylvania without a natural gas severance tax; it imposed an unconventional gas well impact fee instead, administered by the Public Utility Commission and distributed largely to host counties and municipalities.

Questions

Selling land in Pennsylvania

Do I own the oil and gas under my Pennsylvania land?

Not necessarily, and the deed may not settle it. Coal, oil, and gas were severed from surface title across much of Pennsylvania in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and those severed estates remain owned by whoever holds them. Under the Dunham rule, reaffirmed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in Butler v. Charles Powers Estate in 2013, a reservation of 'minerals' that does not name oil or natural gas is presumed not to include them. The Dormant Oil and Gas Act at 58 P.S. § 701.1 does not vest abandoned interests in the surface owner.

Do I need a seller's disclosure statement for vacant Pennsylvania land?

No. The Real Estate Seller Disclosure Law at 68 Pa.C.S. § 7301 and following applies to transfers of residential real estate, which the statute defines as property on which one to four residential dwelling units are situated. Bare ground has none, so no statutory form is due. Two related requirements can still surface at closing: deeds in coal regions carry the statutory coal severance notice under 52 P.S. § 1551, and a buyer will ask about access, percolation testing, and utilities whether or not a statute makes you write the answers down.

My land is enrolled in Clean and Green. What happens when I sell?

Selling does not by itself trigger roll-back taxes; changing the land to an ineligible use does. Act 319 of 1974 at 72 P.S. § 5490.1 and following gives enrolled agricultural use, agricultural reserve, and forest reserve land a use-value assessment, and when the use changes, roll-back taxes come due for the year of the change plus the six preceding years, with six percent interest. Enrollment can continue with a buyer who keeps the qualifying use. Splitting a parcel off can also create liability, and county assessment offices apply the split-off rules differently, so ask first.

Sources for the figures above

These are secondary references, accurate enough to orient you and not a substitute for the statute or your county. Tax procedure changes; nothing here is legal advice.

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