How a Florida foreclosure sale actually runs.

In Florida the lender has to sue. There is no power-of-sale shortcut: the case runs through the circuit court, and only when the judge enters a final judgment of foreclosure does a sale date exist at all.

That judgment is worth reading, because it is not boilerplate. Fla. Stat. § 45.031(1)(a) says the court "shall direct the clerk to sell the property at public sale on a specified day … on terms and conditions specified in the order or judgment". The terms live in the judgment. That is why the Broward Clerk publishes the balance deadline as noon the next business day "or by the deadline stated in the judgment" — the judgment can move it.

It is also why the amount you are bidding against is not the value of the house. It is a judgment figure, and the plaintiff is usually credit-bidding up to it. If the auction platform is showing a plaintiff's maximum bid, that is the number you are really competing with.

Between the judgment and the sale the property is advertised and appears on the county's online auction calendar. The plaintiff carries the cost of publication, and it is charged again every time the sale is reset — the Broward Clerk states that the $70 electronic-sale service charge under Fla. Stat. § 45.035(3) is payable "each time the sale is scheduled or re-scheduled".

Treat the calendar as the only live source. Scheduled is not sold: cancellations and resets are constant, and a listing you looked at a fortnight ago may not exist on the day. In September 2026 the Miami-Dade calendar was carrying roughly 160–260 items a month over 11–13 sessions, and Broward roughly 160–240 over 16–18 — bigger days in Miami-Dade, more of them in Broward. We counted those ourselves off the live calendars; neither county publishes the statistic.

Both counties run their foreclosure sales online through RealAuction: miamidade.realforeclose.com and broward.realforeclose.com. Registration is global — one login works across RealAuction's sites — but money is not. The platform is explicit that "each county handles its own funds", so a deposit sitting in Broward does nothing for you in Miami-Dade, and a foreclosure deposit does nothing for you at a tax deed sale.

The deposit is 5% of your anticipated high bid, per property you expect to win. That figure is Fla. Stat. § 45.031(3) — "the successful high bidder shall post with the clerk a deposit equal to 5 percent of the final bid" — so it is Florida law, statewide, and identical in both counties. It is not a local quirk, whatever you have been told.

What is local is the clock and the instrument. The statute says the deposit is posted "at the time of the sale"; § 45.031(10) then lets a clerk "require bidders to advance sufficient funds", and both of these clerks do. Both set 3:00 PM ET the previous business day for in-person deposits. Miami-Dade takes cash or a cashier's check in person, or a wire that its own guidance says needs two full business days. Broward takes cash, a cashier's check or a wire, and the Clerk's page also lists money orders.

You enter the highest number you are willing to pay and the platform bids for you, in $100 increments, only as far as it has to. RealAuction's own description: the system "enters a bid on your behalf at $100.00 more than the next highest bidder", and stops when your maximum is reached.

There is no fixed finish. Any bid placed with less than 30 seconds on the clock that increases the high bid extends the auction by a full minute — and a modification that does not increase the high bid does not extend it. That is why an item with two determined bidders can run for a quarter of an hour after its advertised close, and why "how long does the auction last" has no useful answer beyond "until nobody raises".

Before an item opens you can raise, lower or cancel your bid. Once it opens you can only raise. Identical pre-auction bids are resolved in favour of whoever entered first. Broward runs its items in order of case number.

The balance of your bid, plus the court registry fee, is due by 12:00 PM ET the next business day — or by the deadline in the judgment, where the judgment sets one. If you are paying by wire, the Broward rule is that it must be *initiated* at your bank by that deadline, which is the opposite of the deposit rule, where the money has to have arrived.

The registry fee is Fla. Stat. § 28.24(11)(a): 3% of the first $500 and 1.5% of each subsequent $100. It works out at roughly 1.5% of the whole bid — and it is the whole bid, not the balance. Section 45.035(3) settles that point: an advance deposit is not subject to the registry fee while it is only securing your right to bid, but "upon acceptance of the winning bid" the winner's deposit becomes subject to it.

Two charges you will see quoted as buyer costs are not yours. The $70 service charge for making and certifying the sale and the further $70 for conducting it electronically are both assessed to the plaintiff under § 45.035. Anyone still quoting $60 for either is working from the pre-2021 version of the statute.

Pay on time and the Clerk files a certificate of sale. You do not own the property yet. Under § 45.031(5) any party may serve an objection to the amount of the bid within 10 days of that filing, and it is only when the ten days pass without one that the clerk files the certificate of title and, in the statute's words, the sale stands confirmed and title passes.

Broward puts the same thing operationally: a certificate of title may issue "after ten (10) full days have elapsed from the issuance of the Certificate of Sale and provided there is no other action relating to the subject proceeding". That second clause is doing work. A motion in the case can hold up your title.

Then it is over. Fla. Stat. § 45.0315 lets the borrower cure only up to the later of the filing of the certificate of sale or the time set in the judgment, and then says it plainly: "Otherwise, there is no right of redemption." There is no post-sale redemption period in a Florida mortgage foreclosure.

The deposit is forfeited and the sale is nullified. Broward's Clerk describes what the forfeited money then does: it pays the non-refundable registry fee and the cost of re-advertising, and whatever is left goes toward the judgment. The property goes back on the calendar.

In Miami-Dade a Certificate of Incomplete Sale issues and the deposit pays for the re-advertisement in the same way. Broward publishes no bidder ban for simply failing to pay a foreclosure balance — the two-auction-date bar there is for bad-faith bidding — but its tax deed side is harsher: default on a tax deed deactivates your RealAuction account for a year.

The practical reading is that the 5% is the cost of a bid you cannot fund. Decide your ceiling before the sale opens and fund it before the deadline, not around it.

Procedure in this niche rots quickly, and that includes the counties' own pages — Miami-Dade's foreclosure FAQ still carries sale days from a 2009 notice, and a Broward tax deed URL that half the internet still links to has been dead for years. Everything above was verified in September 2026 against the Clerks, the county, the platforms and the statutes, and we re-check it.

Before a sale you are actually bidding at, confirm three things with the office itself: the sale date on the live calendar, the deposit deadline for the instrument you are using, and the balance deadline set in that specific judgment. None of them takes more than a phone call.