Short answer. You lose the property. If no redemption is made within one year from registration of the certificate of sale, the purchaser becomes entitled to a conveyance and possession, and acquires all the rights, title, interest and claim you held in the property as of the time of the levy.
What the law says
If no redemption be made within one year from the date of the registration of the certificate of sale, the purchaser is entitled to a conveyance and possession of the property
Rule 39, Section 33 — Deed and possession to be given at expiration of redemption period; by whom executed or given. Read the full provision →
What the law says
the purchaser or redemptioner shall be substituted to and acquire all the rights, title, interest and claim of the judgment obligor to the property as of the time of the levy
Rule 39, Section 33 — Deed and possession to be given at expiration of redemption period; by whom executed or given. Read the full provision →
The year runs from registration, not from the auction
Rule 39, Section 33 fixes the consequence: If no redemption be made within one year from the date of the registration of the certificate of sale, the purchaser is entitled to a conveyance and possession of the property. Note the starting point — the period is counted from the date the certificate of sale was registered, not from the day of the auction itself. Registration can happen days or weeks after the sale, so the true deadline may be later than the auction anniversary. The section also confirms that in all cases the judgment obligor shall have the entire period of one year from the date of the registration of the sale to redeem the property.
What the purchaser acquires when the year lapses
Once the right of redemption expires, the transfer is complete in substance: the purchaser or redemptioner shall be substituted to and acquire all the rights, title, interest and claim of the judgment obligor to the property as of the time of the levy. Whatever ownership and rights you held when the property was levied on pass to the buyer. The flip side is also built into the wording — the purchaser steps into your shoes as of the levy, taking the property with whatever your rights then were, no more and no less.
The final deed and the turnover of possession
The formal steps follow automatically. The deed shall be executed by the officer making the sale or by his successor in office, and a successor's deed has the same validity as one signed by the original officer. Possession shall be given to the purchaser or last redemptioner by the same officer — with one exception the section itself states: unless a third party is actually holding the property adversely to the judgment obligor. A stranger claiming the property in their own right is not simply swept out by the officer; their claim has to be dealt with separately.
If the year has not yet lapsed
The section rewards precision about dates. First establish when the certificate of sale was actually registered — the registry records settle this — because that date, not the auction date, starts the year. If time remains, redemption is a matter of paying the amounts the Rules require within the period, and even a redemption by another creditor does not shorten your own year: the judgment obligor keeps the entire period regardless of intervening redemptions. If the year has truly lapsed, the realistic conversation is no longer about redemption but about whether any separate defect in the levy, sale, or registration can still be raised.