We're pleased to announce that Sheriff Sales is now live on Lackawanna Connect. Since launching Parcel Explorer, foreclosure-auction visibility has been one of the most-requested additions — and it is available starting today. Lackawanna County holds regular sheriff mortgage and judgment sales — public auctions at the courthouse in Scranton. Until now, finding a specific property, comparing past outcomes, or connecting a sale to county parcel records meant digging through PDF schedules on the county website. What's new: a searchable hub that indexes 59 sale dates (2016 through 2026), with property lists, sale results, and direct links into Parcel Explorer.

Try it: Open the Sheriff Sales hub

What is a Lackawanna County sheriff sale?

A Lackawanna County sheriff sale is a public auction of real estate ordered by the Court of Common Pleas — usually after a mortgage foreclosure or judgment. The Sheriff's office conducts the sale; the winning bidder typically must pay a 10% deposit at bidding and the balance by 2:00 PM the same day.

These are not tax sales. Parcels sold for delinquent property taxes are handled separately by the Tax Claim office, not the Sheriff. If you are researching tax-delinquent property, start with the county Tax Claim bureau — not this feed.

Important: Nothing on Lackawanna Connect is legal advice. Sheriff sales involve court orders, liens, and title issues that require professional review. Always verify dates, upset prices, and legal status with the Sheriff's office, the county, or your attorney before bidding or relying on any listing here.

How do I find upcoming sheriff sales in Lackawanna County?

The Sheriff Sales hub lists upcoming and past sale dates in one place. Each date opens a detail page with every property on that day's schedule — defendant name, address, upset price, writ type, and links to county PDFs when available. You can filter by scheduled or completed sales and search across all indexed dates at once.

See it in action: Browse upcoming sheriff sales

How do I search sheriff sale properties by address, defendant, or parcel?

Use the hub search box to look up a defendant name, street address, or parcel number (UPI). Results show which sale date a property appeared on, its lot number, upset price, and outcome when results have been posted. It is a practical way to answer questions like "has this address been at sheriff sale before?" or "what happened at the last foreclosure auction for this parcel?"

What happens at a foreclosure auction in Scranton?

Based on indexed county schedules, Lackawanna County sheriff sales are held typically once a month on Fridays — commonly on the first or second Friday of January, March, June, July, October, and November. Recent sales run at 10:00 AM at the Lackawanna County Courthouse, 200 North Washington Avenue, Scranton, PA. Confirm the exact date on the county's 2026 sale schedule (PDF) before attending.

After a sale, we index results from county documents. Each lot shows an outcome — sold, passed (no bidder met the upset price), continued to a later date, stayed by court order, and more — along with sale price and buyer when reported. A passed sale does not transfer ownership; it means no qualifying bid was accepted that day.

How does Parcel Explorer connect to sheriff sales?

When we can match a listed property to county assessor GIS, the sale links to its Parcel Explorer record — and parcel detail pages now show sheriff sale history for that UPI. That makes it easier to see whether a parcel has been through foreclosure auction before, what the outcome was, and how it fits alongside assessment and deed history already on the map.

See it in action: Open Parcel Explorer and select any parcel with sheriff history.

Where can I learn how sheriff sales work?

We added plain-language guides alongside the data:

How sheriff sales work — overview of the process, deposits, and what to expect
Bidder rules and announcements — county bidding requirements in one place
Writ package summaries — orientation for attorneys filing sales

Where does the data come from?

Schedules, cost sheets, and results are published on the county sheriff sales page. We download those PDFs, run OCR and structured extraction on property rows, and match addresses and parcel numbers to our assessor GIS where possible. Figures reflect what those county documents show on a given day — they can lag official postings or contain extraction errors. Always verify material facts with the Sheriff's office or county before acting on them.

Thank you

Sheriff sales are one of the most-requested additions since we launched Parcel Explorer. Thank you to everyone who asked for better foreclosure-auction visibility, flagged a parsing issue, or shared a sale date we had missed. Your feedback shaped this section — please keep it coming.

Data notes

Sheriff sale listings, outcomes, and prices come from public county documents and may lag or differ from live courthouse records. Matching properties to Parcel Explorer is best-effort; some lots remain unmatched when addresses or parcel numbers in the PDF do not align with assessor data. Outcomes like passed or continued describe what happened at auction — they are not title opinions or ownership confirmations. Lackawanna Connect is an independent local publisher and is not affiliated with Lackawanna County government.

About Lackawanna Connect

Lackawanna Connect is a Northeast Pennsylvania platform for news, data, and civic tools operated by Just Right Place, LLC.