What is a Sheriffs Sale?
The Sheriff seizes or levies upon property for the purpose of satisfying a money judgment. This is done by liquidating the asset (that is, 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 & ownership* of the auctioned property. The Sheriff pays any service providers or vendors who assisted in the seizure (like towing & storage), from the sale proceeds, deducts the various fees & expenses associated with the levy & 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. * See #7 below.
