What is a sheriff's sale?
The sheriff seizes or levies upon property for the purpose of satisfying a money judgment. This is done by liquidating the asset (converting the asset into cash.) This is accomplished by a sheriff's sale, which is a public auction. The highest bidder pays his bid price to the sheriff and takes custody and ownership of the auctioned property. Learn more about high bidder purchasing.

The sheriff pays any service providers or vendors who assisted in the seizure (such as towing and storage) from the sale proceeds, deducts the various fees and expenses associated with the levy and sale from the proceeds, and applies the balance to the judgment.

Note that these types of sales are not like the public auctions held by Police Departments where the property sold is usually property recovered from a crime or simply lost but unclaimed by the true owner. The proceeds from those sales are turned over to the municipality.

Show All Answers

1. What is a sheriff's sale?
2. What exactly is the high bidder purchasing?
3. When are sheriff's sales conducted?