Land · New Jersey tax sale guide

Passaic tax lien sale, New Jersey

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Passaic authorized everything for its 2026 sale in a single January meeting and then published no date. Resolution 26-01-007, adopted in the City Council minutes of Thursday, January 8, 2026, authorizes the annual tax sale under Chapter 99, PL 1997: for amounts in arrears as of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, the Tax Collector sells a tax sale certificate, the sale to be conducted no later than December 31 of the current year. Resolution 26-01-008, adopted the same day, authorizes the Tax Collector to participate in an electronic tax sale, recording that the Division of Local Government Services has approved NJ Tax Lien Investors and RealAuction.com to conduct electronic tax sales. What no city source read adds is the sale itself: no date, no city sale site address, no registration or deposit terms. This page states the two authorizations and marks the rest not published.

Selling office: City of Passaic Tax Collector, 330 Passaic Street

Next sale: Not published. An accelerated sale for 2026 is authorized, to be conducted no later than December 31, 2026; no collector notice with an exact date appears in the city sources read.

Watch the Tax Collector for the sale notice: Passaic's authorizations promise a 2026 sale by year end, and the dated notice is the document that has not posted in the sources read.

Dates and deadlines

Next sale	Not published as a date. Resolution 26-01-007 (January 8, 2026) authorizes the annual accelerated sale for amounts in arrears as of November 11, to be conducted no later than December 31, 2026.
The sale	Accelerated, under Chapter 99, PL 1997 (NJSA 54:5-19): the collector enforces the lien by selling a tax sale certificate for delinquencies from the current and prior years. The same authorization appears in the council minutes of January 11, 2024.
Platform	Electronic sale authorized. Resolution 26-01-008 (January 8, 2026) authorizes the Tax Collector to participate in an electronic tax sale through NJ Tax Lien Investors and RealAuction.com, the vendor the Division of Local Government Services has approved. The city's own sale site address is not published in the sources read.
Registration	Not published in the sources read.
Bidding and payment	Not published in the sources read. The state frame governs the sale itself: the rate is bid down from 18 percent and premium bidding takes over below 1 percent, as set out below.
Redemption	Through the Tax Collector until a Superior Court judgment bars the right. The money side, interest at the bid rate, subsequent payments and the tiered penalty, is set out in the terms table below, on the state frame.
Struck off certificates	Nothing published in the sources read. Under the state frame a lien with no purchaser is struck off to the city at 18 percent and may later be assigned under 54:5-113 or sold at public sale under 54:5-114.1 and 54:5-114.2.
Format	Electronic sale authorized (NJ Tax Lien Investors / RealAuction); whether the 2026 sale runs on it is not published.
Selling office	City of Passaic Tax Collector, 330 Passaic Street

Sources: City of Passaic, City Council minutes, January 8, 2026, Resolutions 26-01-007 and 26-01-008 (cityofpassaic.com). City of Passaic, Tax Collector (cityofpassaic.com). NJ Division of Local Government Services, Elements of Tax Sales in New Jersey. Confirm with the selling office before relying on any date on this page: sales move, terms change, and parcels are pulled up to sale day.

Research Passaic parcels before you bid

A sale list gives you the parcels, the date, and the opening terms. It does not give you the owner, the value, or the rest of the picture: liens, foreclosure status, and parcel history. PropertyRadar is the data platform for that layer. It carries owner records, assessed and market values, foreclosure and tax data, and property history for parcels across Passaic, searchable by address, owner, or county, including parcels that never reach a sale list.

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How New Jersey tax sales work

Nobody at the county sells anything. Under NJSA 54:5-19 the tax collector of each municipality sells. Counties in New Jersey assess nothing for this process and run no sale; every date, list, platform and deposit rule on these pages belongs to a town, not to the county named at the top.
What is sold is a certificate, a lien, not the property. The Division of Local Government Services states it plainly: at the tax sale, title to the delinquent property itself is not sold; what is sold is a tax sale certificate. The owner keeps the property and is not evicted.
Two sale tracks run on the statute's calendar. A standard sale is held in the fiscal year following the year of delinquency. An accelerated sale reaches charges in arrears on the 11th day of the eleventh month of the fiscal year, conducted no earlier than the last month of that year, which is why December accelerated sales exist. A municipality may run both.
Bidding is the rate down from eighteen percent, then premium. Under 54:5-32 the lien is struck off to whoever takes the lowest rate of interest, never above 18 percent. When a bidder offers less than 1 percent or no interest, premium bidding takes over: the winner pays the amount due plus the highest premium. The premium goes to the municipality, earns no interest, is returned if the owner redeems, and escheats to the municipality if the certificate is neither redeemed nor foreclosed within five years.
Redemption runs through the collector until a court bars it. The owner, heirs, a prior certificate holder, a mortgagee or an occupant may redeem at any time until the right is barred by a Superior Court judgment (54:5-54, 54:5-86), paying the sale amount with interest at the bid rate, the holder's subsequent lien payments and expenses, and the tiered penalty in 54:5-61: 2 percent over 200 dollars, 4 percent over 5,000, 6 percent over 10,000.
Foreclosure has two clocks, and assignment moves you to the faster one. A private holder may file in Superior Court after two years from the sale; a municipality, or its assignee or transferee, may file after six months (54:5-86), and a municipality may proceed in rem where six months have run and 21 months of general land taxes remain unpaid (54:5-104.32, 54:5-104.34). Since July 10, 2024, P.L.2024, c.39 has revised the process so an owner can protect remaining equity, so foreclosure is no longer the automatic equity transfer older guides describe.
Unsold liens are struck off to the municipality at eighteen percent. The municipality may later sell those certificates by private assignment under 54:5-113, for not less than the liens by governing body resolution, or at public sale under 54:5-114.1 and 54:5-114.2, the second permitting sales below the amount due. That assignment market is New Jersey's leftover channel, and it is municipal, never county run.

How buying works in Passaic

Passaic is an authorized sale without a published calendar, so preparation runs on the authorization itself: an accelerated sale must happen by December 31, 2026, and the electronic authorization means it is likely to run on the state approved vendor's platform, where Passaic County's largest city already sells online in December in its own documented pattern (the Paterson page in this hub). A buyer watches the collector's postings from the fall and registers on the vendor platform when the city's sale appears there.

The rate is a giveaway on any lien worth having. On contested certificates the interest rate is bid to zero in the first minutes and the real bidding is the premium, which earns nothing and sits with the municipality for up to five years. The disciplined bid is set by the property and the foreclosure timeline, never by the rate.
Two resolutions, one missing date. The accelerated authorization fixes the outer bound, December 31, and nothing finer. In a Chapter 99 city the practical season is the weeks after November 11, when the current year's arrears become saleable; that is when the collector's notice should be expected.

Terms: what a bid actually costs

Deposit, Passaic	Not published. No Passaic sale notice carrying a deposit figure was found in the city sources read. On towns that sell through the state approved online vendor, the deposit is a percentage of the bidder's anticipated total investment set town by town; Passaic has not published its figure.
Payment, Passaic	Not published in the city sources read. The Tax Collector page's interest schedule concerns delinquency interest owed by owners, not bidder payment terms, and is not restated as one here.
What is sold	A tax sale certificate: a lien on the property for the taxes and municipal charges sold, recorded against the property. The property itself is not sold, the owner is not evicted, and the certificate holder's road to the property runs through redemption failing and a Superior Court foreclosure.
The interest ceiling	18 percent per year, the maximum in 54:5-32. Bidding opens at 18 percent and the rate is bid down. The rate the winner takes is the rate the owner pays on redemption, and on contested liens in the publishing towns the rate is routinely bid to zero, which is where the premium takes over.
The premium	When a bidder offers less than 1 percent or no interest, the lien is struck off to whoever pays the amount due plus the highest premium. The premium is paid to the municipality and held by it: it earns the buyer no interest, it is returned if the owner redeems, and it escheats to the municipality if the certificate is neither redeemed nor foreclosed within five years. Model every premium dollar at zero percent, because that is what it earns.
Redemption money	The sum paid at the sale with interest from the sale date at the rate bid; after the certificate issues, plus the holder's expenses and subsequent municipal liens paid under 54:5-59 and 54:5-60; plus the tiered penalty in 54:5-61, 2 percent where the certificate exceeds 200 dollars, 4 percent above 5,000 dollars and 6 percent above 10,000 dollars. A municipality may separately fix a year end penalty up to 6 percent on delinquencies over 10,000 dollars under 54:4-67.
How long redemption really lasts	Until a Superior Court judgment bars it. There is no self expiring redemption date: the operative clocks are the foreclosure filing clocks, two years from the sale for a private holder, six months for a municipality or its assignee, plus the life of the court case. An owner facing a private holder has at least two years; an owner facing a municipal assignee may have far less.
The deed path	Foreclosure of the right of redemption in Superior Court, Chancery Division, or a municipal in rem action under 54:5-104.32 where its conditions are met. Since P.L.2024, c.39 (July 10, 2024) the process protects the owner's remaining equity, so the pre-2024 outcome, foreclosure simply transferring all equity to the holder, is not current law and no 2026 page should describe it as such.

The leftover channel: struck off certificates and municipal assignment

Nothing about struck off certificates is published in the city sources read. Under the state frame a Passaic lien with no purchaser is struck off to the city at 18 percent and may later be sold by private assignment under 54:5-113, for not less than the liens by governing body resolution, or at public sale under 54:5-114.1 and 54:5-114.2, the second permitting sales below the amount due. The assignee of a municipal certificate inherits the municipality's six month foreclosure clock under 54:5-86, measured from the original sale date.

Before you bid

Start with the town, because there is no county list. Every fact that matters, the date, the list, the platform, the deposit, lives with one municipal tax collector. The county page tells you which towns publish and what they published; the towns that publish nothing are a telephone call, and no website, this one included, can substitute for it.
Redeem and pay only through the collector. Redemption money goes to the tax collector for the holder's use, and the collector's figure is the redemption figure. Never pay a certificate holder directly on their own number, and record your certificate with the county clerk within 90 days of the sale to protect the lien.
Know which clock your seller gives you. A certificate bought at the sale carries a two year wait before foreclosure; the same certificate bought by assignment from the municipality can be foreclosed on the six month municipal clock from the original sale date. The channel you buy through is a term of the deal, priced like one.
Set the maximum before the sale opens. The free Max-Bid Calculator below works backwards from your exit value to the highest bid you can pay, with the costs shown. In premium territory the maximum is a property decision, not a yield decision.

The municipal pages in this set

One page per selling office, each verified against its own municipal sources. New Jersey has 566 municipalities and every one sells through its own tax collector; this set is the four hundred seventy largest municipalities by population. The county's other municipalities are aggregated on the Passaic County page.

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