Short answer. Yes. Rule 39, Section 18 provides that at any time before the sale of property on execution, the judgment obligor may prevent the sale by paying the amount required by the execution and the costs that have been incurred. Until the property is actually sold, payment in full stops the auction.
What the law says
At any time before the sale of property on execution, the judgment obligor may prevent the sale by paying the amount required by the execution and the costs that have been incurred therein.
Rule 39, Section 18 — No sale if judgment and costs paid. Read the full provision →
The right lasts until the moment of sale
The rule's opening words do the work: At any time before the sale of property on execution, the judgment obligor may prevent the sale. There is no cut-off earlier than the sale itself — not the levy, not the publication of the notice, not the morning of the auction. As long as the property has not actually been sold, the door is open. That makes this one of the few genuinely last-minute remedies in execution: a debtor who finds the money on the eve of the auction, or even at its threshold, can still keep the property off the block.
What must be paid — and it is not just the judgment
Stopping the sale requires paying the amount required by the execution and the costs that have been incurred therein. Two components, both mandatory. The first is the amount the writ commands to be satisfied, which may already include interest accrued on the judgment. The second is the costs the execution process itself has generated up to that point. Tendering the bare face amount of the decision, while disputing or ignoring the accumulated costs, is not what the rule describes — the payment must cover the whole of what the execution requires, or the sheriff has no duty to stand down.
Why preventing the sale beats undoing it
The rule is written as prevention, not rescue. Once the property is sold at auction, this section no longer helps; whatever remedies remain after a completed sale are different, slower, and less certain than simply never letting the sale happen. An auction can also fetch far less than the property is worth, leaving the debtor stripped of the asset yet possibly still exposed. If raising the full amount is at all possible — through family, refinancing, or selling something less vital on your own terms — doing it before the scheduled sale converts a forced liquidation into an ordinary payment.
How to do it cleanly
First, get the exact figure: the writ and the officer conducting the sale can account for the amount required and the costs so far, and you want that computation in writing before you pay. Second, pay in a way that leaves no doubt — documented, receipted, and communicated immediately to the officer scheduled to conduct the sale, so the auction is actually called off rather than proceeding by momentum. Third, keep every paper: the computation, the proof of payment, the acknowledgment. If any dispute later arises about whether the sale should have proceeded, the record of a complete and timely tender is what settles it.