More deed lawsuits: nearly two years without a deed; $1 million paid for eight properties, requests ignored

Amos Financial, an Illinois-based debt-acquisition firm, moved for sanctions: it bought a property at auction in May 2024 and had yet to receive the deed. “For approximately two years since the sheriff’s sale,” its filing said, “plaintiff is still paying ongoing taxes and preservation costs to protect the property without the benefit of legally possessing the property.”

JSB Property Group, a New Jersey-based firm, sued after paying nearly $1 million for eight properties and having its “repeated requests” to begin ownership transfers ignored, its filing said. Between January and March, the city recorded 185 sheriff-sale deeds, against 180 in the same period of 2025; the Inquirer’s 2024 analysis had found just 29 deeds submitted in February and March of that year, nearly all corresponding to auctions held 200 to 300 days earlier. “This problem is unique to Philadelphia, and it is an embarrassment,” wrote JSB’s attorney, Daniel Bernheim.

The sheriff’s office and the city’s Law Department declined to comment.