Philly municipal worker strike postponed a sheriff sale. More delays are possible.
Sheriff sales in Philly, already beset by administrative snags, have been put on hold due to the District Council 33 strike.
The District Council 33 strike isn’t affecting only trash collection, libraries, and pools. It has also caused the city’s sheriff sales of foreclosed properties to grind to a halt.
A Philadelphia judge, citing the strike, on Tuesday ordered the postponement of a sale scheduled for the same day.
The judge’s order was in response to a request from Sheriff Rochelle Bilal’s office, made four days before the strike announcement, to reschedule the auction of about 200 properties, according to records obtained by The Inquirer.
Undersheriff Tariq El-Shabazz explained in the request that the office’s real estate division and front desk are staffed by 16 workers who are members of DC 33, the 9,000-person labor union that represents many of the city’s blue-collar workers.
“That number is over half the staff required to conduct the sale,” El-Shabazz wrote. “Simply, it would be impossible for the Office to successfully conduct the sale if the DC33 strike occurs.”
Bilal’s office in 2021 outsourced the auctions of foreclosed and tax-delinquent properties to Bid4Assets, a privately run virtual sheriff sale platform. But El-Shabazz’s memo states that the strike would impact “senior staff” who are responsible for handling administrative functions associated with the sales.
The July 1 court order, signed by Daniel J. Anders, a Common Pleas Court administrative judge, delays that day’s sale until Sept. 9. Were the strike to continue, the sheriff could be forced to seek additional court orders delaying planned sales. A sale of tax-delinquent properties is currently slated for July 16.
» READ MORE: ‘I feel like I’ve been robbed’: The sheriff’s office still has massive delays in processing deeds from auctions.
Bilal’s office, which has faced calls for its abolition over mismanagement, has struggled for years to recover from the pandemic-era suspension of sheriff sales.
Since sales resumed last summer after a three-year pause, Bilal has trumpeted a “groundbreaking partnership” with software company Tyler Technologies meant to streamline its internal operations. But the office is still processing only a fraction of the annual sales handled by previous Sheriff Jewell Williams.
And those sales have not gone smoothly.
For the last year, The Inquirer has reported on inexplicable delays in deed processing. Bilal’s staff initially denied there were any widespread delays, then acknowledged last summer that there was a problem, blaming a “staffing error” and pledging to take “corrective action.”
But buyers say they are still waiting up to seven months after they win an auction — or even a year in some cases — to receive the deed.
“Not at all. Worse still,” Clayton Pronold, a lawyer who represents mortgage servicing companies, said in an email Wednesday when asked whether the delays have gotten better. “Looking at a year between sale and deed at this point.”
Another buyer said she recently received two property deeds — nine months after she placed the winning bids at auction. She has given up on trying to buy properties at sheriff sales.
During the lengthy delays between auctions and deed transfers, bills pile up and properties can deteriorate because the new owners cannot access them, make improvements, or rent them out.
Bilal and her staff have not explained why the deed delays continue. Office spokesperson Teresa Lundy said Wednesday that the strike is not expected to exacerbate the delays.