Deed Processing Is Working Again, Sheriff Tells Philly Council. No It’s Not, Buyers Say.

Bidders are ticked off about Philadelphia sheriff sales. They say the system hasn’t been working for years. Widespread deed-processing holdups have led to multiple lawsuits. Exhausted from the process, some have given up on the auctions entirely.

This month, an investigative piece in The Philadelphia Inquirer examined claims from the Philly sheriff that deed processing is back on track and sheriff sales are now going “full blast.”

A real estate agent who sells homes after mortgage foreclosures says that’s “far from the truth.”

Philly Reporters Are Listening. What About the City Council?

The Inquirer has been examining the matter for the past two years. In a new set of interviews, its investigative reporters spoke with real estate agents, investor-buyers, and lawyers. They pored through legal filings and recorded documents. They found a pattern of “deed delays and other complications” that have plagued buyers since January 2020. That’s when the current sheriff, Rochelle Bilal, first took office.

This March, a buyer—who’d paid close to a million dollars to receive deeds to eight auctioned homes—filed a lawsuit. The legal filings show the buyer waiting two months without even receiving a schedule of distribution. The schedule of distribution must be filed within 30 days after a foreclosure sale. It’s a routine invoice, itemizing various fees and liens that must be paid in advance of a deed transfer.

In the counties surrounding Philadelphia, a sheriff’s deed is typically transferred to the buyer and recorded within the two-month period post-auction. Out of 1,700 foreclosure sales across the state since 2022, the Inquirer reports, Bilal’s office has taken 223 days on average to record a deed post-auction, compared against 38 days in nearby Delaware County.

Clearly, Philly’s intake of foreclosure sales is far more than the city can keep up with. The backlog is deep. Mary Jo Potts, who handles sales out of foreclosure auctions through Elfant Wissahickon Realtors, tells reporters that buyers may now be waiting more than two years for deeds from the Philadelphia sheriff’s office. Potts says prospective buyers who don’t want to wait well over a year to get their deeds just stop participating. And homes are being held off the market, waiting for the deeds to be issued. Potts says unprocessed foreclosure deeds lead to prolonged vacancies and neglect of real estate that could serve as useful housing.

But there’s still more harm going on here. The original deed holders who faced stressful tax lien or mortgage foreclosures are supposed to get any excess proceeds after debts are taken out of the auction sales. In Philadelphia, these struggling former homeowners just have to wait.  

Even as the harms accumulate, Bilal is requesting a 54% increase for the sheriff’s office budget. No other Philadelphia department has asked for such a large increase in funding.

Perhaps the increased funding is needed. But are the current cases being handled appropriately? Are people involved in the sheriff sales being offered respect and clarity?

Sheriff Floats “New Theory” to Explain Delays

Reporting on the April 2026 City Council budget hearing, investigative reporters said “Sheriff Rochelle Bilal floated a new theory” for the chronic deed holdups. It’s the winning bidders themselves who slow down the process, the sheriff told Councilmember Cindy Bass, who has been in office for 14 years and ought to know what’s what.

Bilal has said buyers are slow to pay off liens and fees. As for tax-delinquent properties, Bilal told Council that buyers weren’t turning in the forms showing they’d resolved the city’s bills for back taxes.

Buyers say that’s not the case. They’ve submitted proof of tax compliance, but aren’t getting the deeds so they can start repairing, renting, or reselling.

Sheriff Bilal also told the council that, in any case, the deed delays have been sorted out now.

Evidently, Philadelphia council members have been taking Sheriff Bilal’s explanations and promises at face value. They praised the sheriff’s office at the budget hearing, with accolades such as: “The city of Philadelphia works because you all work.”

“Good to hear our City Council is just falling for this,” said Attorney Clayton Pronold about the explanations for delays coming from the sheriff’s office. Attorney Pronold, who works with buyers and mortgage servicing firms, said Bilal had wrongly blamed administrative officers at banks for deeds stuck “in limbo” with the sheriff’s office.

Bilal told the council members that banks are procrastinating on follow-up after foreclosure auctions. That’s because they don’t want to pay fees, Bilal says, before they have a buyer ready to close.

Pronold acknowledged that minor delays can happen at banks. But generally, a bank wants to get a foreclosed home into the hands of a new owner ASAP. One of Pronold’s buyers paid a half-million dollars to the sheriff’s office last November, two weeks after making the winning bid at a foreclosure auction. It’s now May. The buyer’s still waiting for the deed.  

When a successful bidder gets a sheriff’s deed from a city or county, will the title be clear? It all depends. Local officials could have a process to clear the title, but the investor-buyer has to assume that a title coming out of the auction is only as good as it was going into it.

Six Years of the “Recurring Theme”

Serious issues with sheriff sales, reports The Philadelphia Inquirer, amount to “a recurring theme since Bilal took office in 2020.”

That year, tax lien sales stopped completely. They didn’t resume until 2023. The contract between Philadelphia and Tyler Technologies began that year. The city agreed to pay $7.5 million for software that would facilitate the tax sale procedure.

The Inquirer reached out to Bilal in July 2024, asking about the deed recording delays that were still going on. Bilal said there had been a staffing error and that the office was taking action on the matter. In September 2025, a sheriff’s office representative said the matter had been resolved.

Investor-buyer Rachel Shlayen told the Inquirer that since online auctions started during the pandemic year, major delays have become hallmarks of the department. The online auction platform, Bid4Assets, handles most of the thousands of properties each year. But the sheriff’s office must handle the money owed to banks, the city, and utility companies, and provide signed deeds to the top bidders.

Shlayen no longer wants to bid in Philadelphia auctions. The process, she says, has turned into pestering city officials for help, and getting no response.

Next Up: Special Master to Be Appointed to Clear Deed Backlog? Impeachment?

The lawsuits against the sheriff’s office are having an effect. A court order filed on the 13^th of May 2026 directs Sheriff Bilal to:

• Turn in an accounting of every sheriff sale in her entire six-year term.

• Draft a plan for the prompt processing of bidder payments and their deeds.

• Appear (personally, or through a representative) at a public court hearing in July regarding the possible appointment of a special master who would oversee the auctions and help clear out the office’s backlog of payments and unprocessed deeds.

Bilal has also faced claims of allowing a deputy shortage to continue, resulting in “direct harm” to the safe and effective operation of the courts.

State Rep. Jared Solomon is now “preparing articles of impeachment” because the sheriff is “not performing the essential duties of the office as mandated by law,” reports the Inquirer.  

Watch this space in July, as we learn what unfolds at the court hearing.