Land · New Jersey tax sale guide

Plainfield tax lien sale, New Jersey

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Plainfield's record has a shape a buyer should recognize: the program is current, the calendar is old. The Tax Collector's own page confirms the office conducts annual tax sales and that prior-year delinquent taxes, sewer and municipal charges are subject to tax sale, with lien interest at 18 percent per year. The only dated sale document on the city's site is the Tax Sale Advertisement for Thursday, October 20, 2016, in person at the Municipal Building, with pre-registration by October 5, 2016 and payment by cash, money order or certified check. No city notice dated after 2016 was found, and this page carries the 2016 terms as dated terms, not current ones.

Selling office: City of Plainfield Office of the Tax Collector, 515 Watchung Ave, Room 101, Plainfield

Next sale: Not published. The collector's page confirms annual sales; the most recent dated notice on the city site is for October 20, 2016.

Watch the Tax Collector's page: Plainfield sells every year, and the first current dated notice will replace the 2016 advertisement as this page's record.

Dates and deadlines

Most recent dated sale	Thursday, October 20, 2016, 10:00 a.m., in person at the Municipal Building, City Hall Library, for 2015 and prior-year delinquencies, per the city's Tax Sale Advertisement. No city notice dated after 2016 was found in the sources read; the collector's current page confirms annual sales are conducted.
Next sale	Not published. No date for the next sale appears in the city sources read.
Sale track	Not labeled standard or accelerated in the city sources read. The 2016 notice sells prior-year delinquencies in the following year, the standard timing pattern; the notice does not use the word standard.
Registration	As published in the 2016 advertisement, recorded as dated terms: bidders were required to be pre-registered on or before October 5, 2016. No current registration terms are published in the sources read.
Deposit	Not published in the sources read.
Bidding and payment	As published in the 2016 advertisement, recorded as dated terms: lands sold at the lowest rate bid, not exceeding 18 percent; payment by cash, money order or certified check. Current terms are not published in the sources read.
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	As published in the 2016 advertisement: properties receiving no bid were struck off to the municipality at 18 percent.
Format	In person at the Municipal Building, per the 2016 advertisement. The current format is not published in the sources read.
Selling office	City of Plainfield Office of the Tax Collector, 515 Watchung Ave, Room 101, Plainfield, NJ 07060. The 2016 advertisement names David Marshall as collector; that name is dated 2016 and is not stated here as the current holder.

Sources: City of Plainfield, Tax Collector page (plainfieldnj.gov). City of Plainfield, Tax Sale Advertisement, October 20, 2016 sale (plainfieldnj.gov document host). 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 Plainfield 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 Plainfield, 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 Plainfield

Plainfield publishes the program and one complete, dated sale document from 2016. A buyer can learn the shape of a Plainfield sale from that advertisement, registration first, guaranteed funds at the sale, unsold liens struck off to the city, but cannot treat its terms as current. The working preparation is the state frame plus the collector's page, where the next dated notice will post.

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.
Dated terms are evidence about the past, not instructions for the next sale. The 2016 advertisement is the city's own document and its terms are quoted here as 2016 terms. Registration deadlines and payment forms change between cycles; the current notice, when it posts, is the only document that governs.

Terms: what a bid actually costs

Deposit, Plainfield	Not published. No Plainfield sale notice carrying a deposit figure was found in the city sources read.
Payment, Plainfield	As published in the 2016 advertisement, recorded as dated terms: payment by cash, money order or certified check. Current payment terms are not published in the sources read.
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

Plainfield's 2016 advertisement answers the leftover question for that sale: properties receiving no bid were struck off to the municipality at 18 percent. No separate assignment-sale activity was published in the sources read. Under the state frame a struck off certificate 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 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 Union County page.

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