Municipal certificate assignment: how it works
Assignment or sale of municipality-held tax sale certificates
Parcels that draw no bid at the tax sale are struck off to the municipality at 18 percent. The municipality's governing body may later, by resolution, sell a certificate it holds by private sale through an assignment, for not less than the liens charged against the property (or not less than the assessed value where the liens exceed it), or offer held certificates at a separate public sale to the highest bidder, sometimes for less than the amount due. This is at the governing body's discretion, not a standing over-the-counter right, and a buyer at a 54:5-114.2 public sale must foreclose and record final judgment within two years of confirmation or lose the purchase. Assignments must be recorded with the county clerk and served on the tax collector.
Does New Jersey publish a lands-available list?
New Jersey keeps no statewide lands-available list. Property a municipality takes through foreclosure is municipal property and is disposed of under the municipality's own procedures, not through the tax sale.
This route skips the live auction, which means these are the parcels nobody bid on, so the due diligence matters even more. Every state names this inventory differently, and the state-held and struck-off land table maps each local name to the same mechanism. The over-the-counter guide has the cross-state playbook.
Verified Sep 27, 2026 against New Jersey sources.
Tax Sale Atlas publishes educational information about public tax sale processes. This is not legal, financial, or investment advice. Rules, dates, and fees change; confirm with the county office before you bid.