Florida Sheriff Sale 2026: 5 Auction Lists Worth Watching

Florida has no sheriff sale in the sense most out-of-state searchers mean. Court-ordered real estate auctions here belong to the clerk of the circuit court: foreclosure sales run under section 45.031, Florida Statutes, and tax deed sales under chapter 197, Florida Statutes. The sheriff sale you want is really one of five public auction lists, and this guide maps each one, who runs it, the deposit, and how to bid.

What is a sheriff sale in Florida, and who actually runs it?

The clerk runs it, not the sheriff. Court-ordered sales of Florida real estate are directed to the clerk of the circuit court under section 45.031, Florida Statutes, and chapter 197 assigns tax deed sales to the clerk and the annual certificate sale to the tax collector. The name sticks by out-of-state habit, because in some states the sheriff really does run the foreclosure auction. There is no statewide sheriff's auction site. What exists is five lists:

List	What sells	Who runs it	Where the list lives
Foreclosure sale calendar	real estate under final judgments	clerk of court	county auction sites such as broward.realforeclose.com and miamidade.realforeclose.com
Tax deed sale calendar	real estate for unredeemed tax certificates	clerk of court in most counties, but the county Records, Taxes and Treasury Division in Broward	RealAuction's tax deed platform in most counties, for example broward.realtaxdeed.com and lee.realtaxdeed.com; Miami-Dade is the outlier and runs tax deeds on miamidade.realforeclose.com
Tax certificate (tax lien) sale	certificates, which are liens, not property	tax collector	LienHub and similar portals, on or before June 1 each year
Lands available for taxes	parcels nobody paid for at tax deed sale	clerk of court	public reports on county-taxes.net and clerk pages
Execution sale notices	judgment debtors' property levied under writ	sheriff	the civil division of the county sheriff's office

What if you searched "cuy county sheriff sale"?

That search is usually Cuyahoga County, Ohio, where the sheriff runs the foreclosure calendar. Florida differs in ways that cost money if you assume otherwise. Four recalibrations:

• In most counties the bidding is online and proxy-based, because section 45.031(10), Florida Statutes, permits but does not require the clerk to conduct the sale by electronic means. Check your county clerk's notice of sale before assuming there is nothing to attend.
• Your deposit must be funded before you bid, because the clerk may require advance funds under section 45.031(10), Florida Statutes.
• You receive a certificate of title from the clerk, and title passes when it is filed, under section 45.031(6), Florida Statutes. There is no sheriff's deed.
• The redemption window does not close at the gavel: in a tax deed case the owner's right under section 197.472, Florida Statutes, ends once full payment reaches the clerk, but in a foreclosure the mortgagor or the holder of any subordinate interest may still cure under section 45.0315, Florida Statutes, until the later of the clerk's filing of the certificate of sale or the time specified in the judgment. If an IRS lien was foreclosed, the United States also has 120 days from the date of sale to redeem under 28 U.S.C. s. 2410(c).

Is there a sheriff auction you can attend in person?

Almost never, with one narrow exception. When a judgment creditor levies on a debtor's land, the sheriff conducts that sale: lands are subject to levy under section 56.061, Florida Statutes, the sale is noticed under section 56.21, conducted under section 56.22, and the sheriff delivers the deed under section 56.25. These are the only Florida real estate sales run by a sheriff. They are rare, there is no central calendar, and the entry point is the sheriff's civil division.

The sheriff still appears in these deals, just not as auctioneer: in a tax deed case the sheriff serves the legal titleholder at least 20 days before sale and posts notice if service fails, under section 197.522(2), Florida Statutes.

Where do you find the foreclosure sale list?

On the clerk's auction site, free, no account needed to browse. Broward's foreclosure sale list sits at broward.realforeclose.com, Miami-Dade's at miamidade.realforeclose.com, which the clerk uses for both foreclosure and tax deed sales, and most counties run the same platform or link it from the clerk's site. Notice of sale must be published either continuously for at least two consecutive weeks before the sale on the publicly accessible website operated under section 50.0311, Florida Statutes, or once a week for two consecutive weeks in a newspaper, with the second newspaper publication at least five days before the sale, under section 45.031(2), Florida Statutes.

The calendar is statutory clockwork: the sale happens not less than 20 and not more than 35 days after final judgment, unless the plaintiff consents to more time, under section 45.031(1), Florida Statutes. Each listing shows the case number, address, parcel, final judgment amount, and its own closing date and time. Work it in this order:

• Read the notice of sale when the listing posts, because the deposit and payment terms in the notice bind you.
• Pull the full docket to see who the plaintiff is and what lien is being foreclosed.
• Recheck the listing the morning of the sale. Cases cancel for settlements, for bankruptcy filings under the automatic stay of 11 U.S.C. s. 362, and for enlargements of the sale date, which the court may grant in its discretion under section 45.031(2), Florida Statutes.

How does bidding work at the clerk's online auction?

You register days ahead, fund a deposit, and set a proxy maximum. The statutory deposit is 5 percent of the final bid under section 45.031(3), Florida Statutes, and the clerk may require advance funds before bidding opens under section 45.031(10), Florida Statutes. The platform bids only what your cap requires, other bidders never see it, and you are almost always bidding against the plaintiff's advance credit proxy bid, which the clerk must accept up to the plaintiff's maximum allowable credit bid under section 45.031(10), Florida Statutes.

If you win, the chain is short and every deadline is real:

• Pay the balance by the clerk's advertised deadline, usually by midday the next business day. Miss it and the clerk readvertises the sale and pays the costs out of your deposit under section 45.031(3), Florida Statutes.
• The clerk files the certificate of sale under section 45.031(4), Florida Statutes, and parties then have 10 days to object to the sale or the bid amount under section 45.031(5) and (8).
• If no objection lands, the clerk files the certificate of title, and title passes on filing, under section 45.031(6), Florida Statutes.

Budget the taxes nobody prices in. Documentary stamp tax runs 70 cents per 100 dollars of the highest bid under section 201.02, Florida Statutes, and Miami-Dade differs, as covered below. You cannot inspect the interior before bidding, so the exterior and the lien record are your whole underwriting.

What is a tax sale in Florida: certificate, deed, or lands available?

The tax sale info most searchers want splits into three sales, and confusing them is the expensive mistake. Tax sale properties reach the market through this pipeline:

Sale	What you are buying	Who runs it	The rules that bite
Tax certificate sale	a lien that earns interest	tax collector, online, on or before June 1 or the 60th day after delinquency, whichever is later (s. 197.402(3))	you bid the interest rate down in quarter-point steps; pay within 48 hours of notice or the tax collector may forfeit all or part of your deposit (s. 197.432(7))
Tax deed sale	the property itself	clerk of court (s. 197.542)	nonrefundable deposit of 5 percent or 200 dollars, whichever is greater; full payment within 24 hours, excluding weekends and legal holidays; homestead parcels add one-half of assessed value to the certificateholder's opening bid
Lands available for taxes	parcels the certificateholder let go unpaid	clerk places them on the list (s. 197.542(1), (3))	public via county-taxes.net reports; the county has the first 90 days to purchase at the opening bid, after which any person may buy it without another auction cycle, and land left on the list three years escheats to the county (s. 197.502(8))

The mechanics: certificates go to the bidder demanding the lowest interest rate, with ties broken by first bid or random draw and unsold certificates struck to the county, all under section 197.432, Florida Statutes. A certificate is a lien, not ownership, and it goes null and void seven years after issuance if nobody acts, under section 197.482, Florida Statutes. The holder may apply for a tax deed two years after April 1 of the issuance year, under section 197.502(1), Florida Statutes. At the deed sale the opening bid is the redemption amount plus the applicant's costs and interest, plus one-half of assessed value if the parcel is assessed as homestead, under section 197.542(1), Florida Statutes. If nobody outbids the holder and the holder does not pay within 30 days, the parcel goes on the lands-available list.

The owner can redeem until full payment for the deed is in the clerk's hands, under section 197.472, Florida Statutes. After that there is no statutory redemption, only a quiet-title or similar court challenge, and section 197.602, Florida Statutes, makes even a successful challenge costly by requiring reimbursement of the deed holder's purchase price plus 12 percent interest, legal expenses, and the value of improvements.

How does the Miami-Dade County tax lien sale work?

Once a year, online, through LienHub. The Miami-Dade County tax collector holds the tax certificate sale on June 1, and the certificate amount is the unpaid tax plus non-ad valorem assessments, penalties, advertising and fees, with interest from June 1, per the Miami-Dade tax collector's certificate sale page. The LienHub auction site posts the advertised list in May, and you register there before bidding. Homestead parcels with less than 250 dollars of unpaid tax are not auctioned; the certificate is issued to the county under section 197.432(4), Florida Statutes, and can be bought later as a county-held certificate. Miami-Dade also withholds parcels in bankruptcy or litigation from the sale.

Three Miami-Dade specifics worth knowing, whichever "dade county tax lien sale" search brought you here:

• County-held certificates can be bought directly from the tax collector under section 197.4725, Florida Statutes, through a standing LienHub purchase channel, so June is not the only entry point.
• To force a property to sale, a holder applies through the county's DeedExpress system, after 22 months from the year of issuance and before the certificate expires, consistent with sections 197.502 and 197.482, Florida Statutes.
• The Miami-Dade clerk, not the tax collector, runs the tax deed auction at miamidade.realforeclose.com under the procedures in the clerk's Administrative Order 13-05, with records on the clerk's RealTDM system and the lands-available report on county-taxes.net.

Remember the doc stamps: a Miami-Dade deed carries 60 cents per 100 dollars, plus the 45-cent discretionary surtax on documents transferring anything other than a single-family residence authorized by section 125.0167, Florida Statutes, as published by the Florida Department of Revenue, so a condo at auction carries materially higher transfer tax than the same price elsewhere in Florida.

What is a probate sale, and how is it different from a sheriff sale?

A probate sale is a negotiated sale by the personal representative, not a public auction, and no clerk or sheriff publishes a probate sale list. The authority comes from section 733.613, Florida Statutes: with a power of sale in the will, the representative conveys without court confirmation, and the buyer takes free of estate creditors' claims and the beneficiaries' interests. Without one, the court must authorize the sale first.

Homestead is the exception that traps wholesalers. When the decedent is survived by a minor child the homestead cannot be devised at all, and when there is a surviving spouse but no minor child it may be devised only to that spouse; otherwise it descends by operation of law under sections 732.401 and 732.4015, Florida Statutes, and cleaning that up usually requires a homestead determination under Florida Probate Rule 5.405 before title is marketable. To find probate leads, work the records rather than a list:

• Search the Official Records for letters of administration and notices of administration, which open most estates.
• Pull the probate docket, and confirm the representative's letters and the will's power of sale before you contract.
• Watch the clock created by section 733.212, Florida Statutes, which cuts off objections to the will's validity, venue, or the court's jurisdiction three months after service of the notice of administration, because estates that need liquidity negotiate hardest inside that window.

What survives the sale, and what should you check before bidding?

Florida auction sales are buyer beware, and what they wipe is narrower than buyers hope. A foreclosure certificate of title forecloses the junior interests named in the lawsuit, but ad valorem taxes and tax certificates survive under chapter 197, Florida Statutes, and association debt follows the property: a non-mortgagee new owner is jointly and severally liable for past HOA assessments under section 720.3085(2)(b), Florida Statutes, and condominium assessments under section 718.116(1)(a). A tax deed extinguishes most liens under section 197.552, Florida Statutes, but unpaid recorded liens of cities, counties, special districts and community development districts survive, as do easements and covenants under sections 197.572 and 197.573. A bona fide tenant is entitled to at least 90 days' notice to vacate under the federal Protecting Tenants at Foreclosure Act, and a tenant under a bona fide lease may generally remain through the end of the lease term unless the buyer will occupy the property as a primary residence, in which case the 90-day notice applies, and removal runs through a writ of possession under Florida Rule of Civil Procedure 1.580.

Your pre-bid checklist, in order:

• Read the final judgment or tax deed file, and confirm the sale is still scheduled the morning you bid.
• Run a title search in the Official Records by legal description, not address, and list what survives versus what wipes.
• Pull the property appraiser record for ownership, assessed value and exemption status, which signals homestead, occupancy and, in a tax deed case, a higher opening bid under section 197.542(1), Florida Statutes.
• Order the association estoppel on anything in an HOA or condo, and price the joint liability.
• Drive by. You are buying the exterior and the paper.

None of this is legal advice, and a Florida real estate attorney should read any file where real money is at stake.

What to do next

Pick one of the five lists this week, Broward's foreclosure calendar or the Miami-Dade certificate list, and dry-run the checklist on three live entries. When you would rather start with a shortlist than a raw calendar, estate.partners Pro pulls these county records daily and ranks the deals worth chasing.