(a) Any tax determined to be due by the department and remaining unpaid after demand for the same, and all penalties and interest thereon, shall be a lien in favor of the Commonwealth upon the property, both real and personal, of such person but only after said lien has been entered and docketed of record by the prothonotary of the county where such property is situated.

(a.1) At any time after it makes an assessment of additional tax, penalty or interest, the department may transmit to the prothonotaries of the respective counties certified copies of all liens for such taxes, penalties and interest, and it shall be the duty of each prothonotary receiving the lien to enter and docket the same of record in his office, which lien shall be indexed as judgments are now indexed. After the department's assessment becomes final, a writ of execution may directly issue upon such lien without the issuance and prosecution to judgment of a writ of scire facias: Provided, That not less than ten days before issuance of any execution on the lien, notice shall be sent by certified mail to the taxpayer at his last known post office address. No prothonotary shall require as a condition precedent to the entry of such liens, the payment of any costs incident thereto.

(b) The lien imposed hereunder shall have priority from the date of its recording as aforesaid, and shall be fully paid and satisfied out of the proceeds of any judicial sale of property subject thereto before any other obligation, judgment, claim, lien or estate to which said property may subsequently become subject, except costs of the sale and of the writ upon which the sale was made, and real estate taxes and municipal claims against such property, but shall be subordinate to mortgages and other liens existing and duly recorded or entered of record prior to the recording of the tax lien. In the case of a judicial sale of property subject to a lien imposed hereunder upon a lien or claim over which the lien imposed hereunder has priority, as aforesaid, such sale shall discharge the lien imposed hereunder to the extent only that the proceeds are applied to its payment, and such lien shall continue in full force and effect as to the balance remaining unpaid.

(c) The lien imposed hereunder shall continue for five years from the date of its entry of record, and may be renewed and continued in the manner now or hereafter provided for the renewal of judgments, or as may be provided in the act of April 9, 1929 (P.L. 343, No. 176),¹ known as “The Fiscal Code.”