Land · Delaware tax sale guide

Delaware tax sales by county

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Delaware is a redeemable deed state with a court at both ends of the sale. Under the monition method in sections 8721 to 8733 of Title 9, the county tax collecting authority takes a judgment against the property in Superior Court, the sheriff posts the monition warning on the property, and after 20 days the property is exposed to public sale under a writ of venditioni exponas, at the full purchase price on the day of sale. The Superior Court must then approve the sale, the owner has 60 days from that approval to redeem at the price plus 15 percent and costs, and the buyer still has to petition the Court for a sheriff's deed, which vests the owners' title freed of liens. The four pages below track the three counties and the City of Wilmington, whose own finance department files its own monitions, approves its own final bids, and charges a 20 percent redemption premium inside the same New Castle County auction room.

The local variation sits in the calendar and the paperwork, not in the mechanism. New Castle County sells on the second Tuesday of every month and adds a county prequalification ordinance for its tax sales; Kent County sells monitions only four times a year, on the last Tuesday of January, April, July and October, and its sheriff's plain language page overstates the redemption period at approximately 90 days where the statute says 60 days from approval; Sussex County sells on the third Tuesday of every month and publishes the cleanest monition terms of the three, quoting sections 8726 and 8729 by number. Kent and Sussex also share a second statutory channel, the Subchapter IV sale of land by the tax collecting authority itself, with a one year redemption and liens that survive, which neither county presents as its operating channel and which no buyer should confuse with a monition sale. Read the state frame first, then the page for the county, or the city, that filed on the parcel.

Verify before you go: a city or town can move a date, change terms, cancel a sale, or pull parcels at any time. The official sale list is the final word.

The 4 jurisdictions

Each row links to that jurisdiction's own page: selling office, venue or platform, deposit, payment terms, leftover channel, and sources. Where a jurisdiction has not posted a dated sale, the row says so instead of projecting a pattern onto it.

How Delaware monition sales work

• Delaware collects delinquent real estate taxes by a court sale under the monition method in Subchapter II of Chapter 87 of Title 9 of the Delaware Code, sections 8721 to 8733. The buyer purchases the real estate itself at a sheriff sale; there is no sale of liens or certificates.
• The county tax collecting authority files a praecipe in the office of the Prothonotary of the Superior Court for the county where the property is located, and the Prothonotary records it on a special judgment docket against the property for the taxes due (section 8722). The tax is a lien for 10 years from July 1 of the levy year, and in Kent and Sussex Counties the lien has priority over all other liens (section 8705).
• On a praecipe for monition, the Prothonotary issues a monition to the sheriff stating the judgment, including accrued penalty. The monition warns every person with an interest that the judgment must be paid within 20 days or the property may be sold for the judgment, accrued penalties and all costs (sections 8722 and 8723). The sheriff posts the monition on a prominent part of the property and returns it within 10 days; the posting is notice to the owner and all interested persons (section 8724).
• After 20 days following the sheriff's return, if the judgment and costs are not paid, a writ of venditioni exponas issues commanding the sheriff to expose the property to public sale (section 8725). Sales are held by the county sheriff on the county's published sale day, and in all three counties the full purchase price is due on the day of sale for a monition sale.
• Where the sale notice so provides, the county department of finance or chief county financial officer may approve or disapprove the final bid for any public purpose or reason, and counties may require bidders to be certified before they bid (section 8726). A municipality has the same approval and certification powers for its own monition sales under section 113 of Title 22.
• On the return of the writ, the Superior Court inquires into the regularity of the proceedings and either approves the sale or sets it aside (section 8731). The owner may then redeem at any time within 60 days from the day the sale is approved, by paying the purchaser the purchase price and 15 percent in addition, together with all costs (section 8729).
• If the property is not redeemed, the purchaser must petition the Superior Court for an order directing the sheriff to execute and deliver a deed (section 8728). The sale vests in the purchaser all the right, title and interest of the person assessed and of the owners, freed and discharged from liens and encumbrances (section 8727).
• Kent and Sussex Counties have a second statutory channel, the sale of land for delinquent taxes in Subchapter IV, sections 8771 to 8779, under which the tax collecting authority sells the land itself at the courthouse door, no deed issues until 1 year from the sale, the owner redeems at the purchase money with 20 percent interest, prior liens survive the sale, and any excess over the tax, costs and expenses is paid at once to the owner (sections 8704, 8776 and 8779). Neither county presents its published sheriff tax sales as sales under that channel.
• On a monition sale, proceeds above the judgment and costs are not kept by the county: in the published New Castle County practice, lien holders and homeowners contact the Sheriff's Office for proceeds remaining after distribution of the costs of the sale, and excess proceeds unclaimed after 90 days go to the Prothonotary for escrow and listing on the Superior Court Project Rightful Owner pages, which the Court maintains for all three counties. Delaware enacted no amendment to Chapter 87 after Tyler v. Hennepin County addressing surplus.

In Delaware a tax buyer pays the full price on sale day, and still waits: the Superior Court must approve the sale, the owner then has 60 days from approval to buy the property back at the price plus 15 percent and costs, and only then may the buyer petition the Court for a sheriff's deed.

Research the parcels before you bid

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The dates on these pages are the free layer. The Pine membership is the paid layer, proven in New York: members pick their counties, get alerts when a sale is scheduled or a list posts, and receive the full property list with the analysis already done. Delaware jurisdictions open from the interest list first, in the order readers join it.

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