TDSPolk tax-deed board

Rubric v1.1

TDS Rubric v1.1

Polk-first tax-deed screen. Grade every parcel before it hits the board. One grade, one family, one comment. Do not invent a fourth grade.

Product: Tax Deed Scanner · URL: https://tds.drewiseman.com

Grades

| Grade | Meaning | Action | | --- | --- | --- | | PASS | Hard no. Structure, access, water, or title makes it unworkable at any cheap bid. | Leave it. Do not “just see what it goes for.” | | LOOK | Not dead, not ready. One or two facts would flip it to CANDIDATE or PASS. | Drive-by / PA / clerk before the sale week. | | CANDIDATE | Cheap for a reason we can live with, and the reason is written down. | Checklist + max bid. |

Default when data is thin: LOOK, not CANDIDATE.

Families

Use exactly one family on the comment row.

  • vacant-road-frontage — dirt or grove with recorded access
  • improved-sf — house / mobile / outbuilding
  • landlocked — no recorded ingress
  • wetland-acsc — Green Swamp / ACSC / jurisdictional wetland
  • flood-a — Zone A / AE without elevation story
  • heir-title — probate, heir, or “unknown owner” stack
  • lien-stack — CE, special assessments, or HOA above the tax bid
  • surplus-adjacent — leftover remnant, flag, or orphan strip
  • other

Hard PASS (any one is enough)

  1. Landlocked — no recorded ingress or easement on the last deed / PA sketch.
  2. No legal access even if a dirt two-track is visible.
  3. ACSC / Green Swamp with no build path a normal buyer can use.
  4. Mapped wetland covering the usable pad.
  5. Opening bid ≥ just value with no residual story (not a “cheap” deed).
  6. Open CE demo / unsafe structure on an improved lot you would have to occupy.
  7. Homestead occupied with a living occupant you would have to evict to use the dirt.

Cheap is not a virtue if the parcel cannot be reached, permitted, or emptied.

LOOK triggers

  • Improved structure, condition unknown.
  • Heir / “unknown owner” without a clerk case read.
  • Flood A/AE but high ground or fill history possible.
  • Bid looks cheap vs JV, but PA land use and clerk liens are unread.
  • Adjacent-county ads with no local overlay yet.

CANDIDATE bar

All of:

  • Recorded access (or a documented easement you would actually use).
  • Bid/JV (or bid/land value) cheap enough that a miss still teaches.
  • Why-cheap is written and is not “landlocked” or “wetland.”
  • No hard PASS flag remaining.

Kathleen vacant-with-frontage is the teaching CANDIDATE. Wilkinson improved is the teaching LOOK. Landlocked is the teaching PASS.

Comment shape

[family] [grade] — why cheap — what you will check — what would kill it.

Keep sources in comments.sources (PA URL, clerk case, overlay). Keep flags in enrichment.flags JSON. Rubric version on the row: v1.1.

What this rubric does not do

  • It does not set a dollar max bid.
  • It does not replace a title search.
  • It does not run the county scrape. Cron stubs stay dry-run until a human turns them on.