Clay County, KS tax sales
How tax deed sales work in Clay County, seat of Clay Center: sale calendar, auction platform, over-the-counter lists, and the offices that run each sale.
New to tax sales? Read how Kansas tax sales work or look terms up in the glossary.
- Announcements
- The county publishes its parcel list only while a sale is pending.
- Format
- In person
- Registration
- Registration with the Clay County Treasurer is required before you can bid.
- County office
- 785-632-3282
On this page
How Clay County sells delinquent taxes
Tax deed sale
- Run by
- Clay County Treasurer's Office
- Frequency
- annual
- Registration
- Registration with the Clay County Treasurer is required before you can bid.
When it runs
Registration and deposit
Registration with the Clay County Treasurer is required before you can bid. County commission minutes for December 8, 2025 state that you must be registered with the County Treasurer in order to bid on a piece of property, and the published order of sale carried the same requirement. Register at the Treasurer's Office, 712 5th Street, Suite 105, Clay Center, or call 785-632-3282 for the registration cutoff and the accepted forms of payment for that sale.
Sale format and venue
Clay County tax sale list and auction calendar
For Clay County tax sale 2026 searches, use the county-run sources below rather than a copied parcel list, and confirm the parcel, registration cutoff, deposit, and payment deadline against the county before you bid.
Get the advertised list
Use Delinquent Tax Listings and Tax Sale Info for the current advertised parcels, then recheck it before the auction.Register to bid
Sale day
The sale is live and in person; there is no online bidding platform. Confirm the venue and hour with the county office before you go.Confirm with the office
If the list, platform, and notice disagree, use Clay County Treasurer's Office as the source to confirm which parcels are actually offered.
Before you bid in Clay County
4 checks
Start with the live sale list
Pull the current advertised parcels from Delinquent Tax Listings and Tax Sale Info. Lists can change before the sale, so recheck the county source before you price a parcel.Confirm registration and deposit
Registration with the Clay County Treasurer is required before you can bid. County commission minutes for December 8, 2025 state that you must be registered with the County Treasurer in order to bid on a piece of property, and the published order of sale carried the same requirement. Register at the Treasurer's Office, 712 5th Street, Suite 105, Clay Center, or call 785-632-3282 for the registration cutoff and the accepted forms of payment for that sale.
Check the state rules that change the bid
Read the Kansas due-diligence checklist before bidding. Redemption, liens that survive a tax deed, title cleanup, and payment deadlines can change what a parcel is worth.Set a walk-away number
Work out what the parcel is actually worth with the rural land value estimator, then turn it into a ceiling with the tax deed max-bid calculator.
Over-the-counter (leftover) purchases
unsold properties
Kansas counties sell no tax lien certificates and keep no over-the-counter certificate list. What a county can hold is real estate it bought in at its own sheriff's sale. The commissioners keep a record of every such parcel that is open to public inspection, and the board sells them at private or public sale for cash, at a price of at least the original judgment lien plus interest, the costs in the order of sale, and every subsequent tax and special assessment. Six months after the sale to the county is confirmed the board may reduce the price and take sealed bids after advertising for three consecutive weeks, or sell at public auction to the highest cash bidder. Ask the county clerk or county counselor for the current county-owned list, and check whether the county has a land bank.
New to this path? Read how over-the-counter purchases work.
Use the arrow keys to switch between these sections.
County offices
Tax sale office
County notes
- Clay County sells tax foreclosure property at a live auction in Clay Center. There is no online bidding platform, so a bidder or an agent has to be in the room.
- You must register with the Clay County Treasurer's Office before the auction to be eligible to bid.
- Delinquent real estate goes into redemption on the first Tuesday in September. A parcel becomes eligible for a tax foreclosure sale only if the taxes remain unpaid three years after that redemption date.
- Taxes must be paid before August 1. If they are still unpaid on that date the county prints a delinquent tax listing in the newspaper and assesses a $16 fee on top of the accrued interest, so the newspaper listing is the earliest public signal that a parcel is heading toward foreclosure.
- The county publishes its parcel list only while a sale is pending. Between sales the tax sale page carries no list, so watch it and the local newspaper in the weeks before an announced auction date.
- Sale volume is small. The pending sale opened with about 30 parcels, narrowed to 23 when title work was ordered, and was down to five properties by early August 2026 as owners redeemed.
- Clay County retained Klenda Austerman Attorneys at Law of Wichita to handle the foreclosure procedure for the current sale cycle, and Republican Valley Title to complete the title work on the sale parcels.
- Deposit amounts and accepted payment forms are set per sale and are not published in advance. Confirm them with the Treasurer at 785-632-3282 when you register.
Kansas rules
- Redemption
- Kansas redemption has two stages, and both close before the auction. Stage one is K.S.A. 79-2401a: once the treasurer bids the parcel off to the county in September, the county holds it for three years for a homestead under section 9 of article 15 of the Kansas Constitution and for all real estate not described in K.S.A. 79-2401a(a), two years where the parcel was bid off for both delinquent taxes and special assessments, and one year for an abandoned building or structure and the land accommodating it, meaning one that has been unoccupied for at least a year with a failure to perform reasonable maintenance. During that window the owner pays the county treasurer directly. On the three-year track a PARTIAL redemption is allowed: paying the taxes for one or more years, starting with the earliest year the parcel was carried on the tax-sale book, plus interest at the K.S.A. 79-2004 rate, pushes back the date a foreclosure sale may be commenced by the number of years paid. The Johnson County paragraph applies the same partial payment to the most recent year instead of the earliest, and it does not carry the extension sentence. Stage two is K.S.A. 79-2803: after the petition is filed the treasurer may no longer take ordinary payments, but the owner or holder of record title, their heirs, devisees, executors, administrators, assigns, or any mortgagee or mortgagee's assigns may still redeem at any time BEFORE THE DAY OF SALE by filing an application to redeem with the clerk of the district court and paying the clerk a share of the costs, being whatever the court orders or, absent an order, 5 percent of the lien amount stated in the petition for that parcel plus any charges chargeable separately against it. The treasurer then computes the full taxes, charges, interest, and penalties, issues a redemption certificate in triplicate, and the sheriff strikes the parcel from the order of sale. Once the sale happens the right is gone. Kansas gives no post-sale redemption period and no right to buy the property back after the sheriff's deed. What exists after the sale is a twelve-month window under K.S.A. 79-2804b to open, vacate, modify, or set aside the judgment, the order of sale, or the sale. That is a title challenge, not redemption: it is available to parties attacking the proceedings, it requires grounds, and it does not let a former owner simply pay the taxes and take the parcel back.
- Deed deposit
- Kansas fixes no statewide deposit percentage and no statutory bidder registration. K.S.A. 79-2804 is silent on deposits, so the terms are whatever the sheriff publishes for that sale. The statute does require one payment at the auction itself: the register of deeds filing fee for the sheriff's deed is collected from the successful bidder at the time of sale and deposited with the register of deeds at recording. Confirm the county's accepted funds, any registration step, and the payment deadline before bidding, and expect certified funds.
- Surplus proceeds
- If a parcel sells for more than the judgment lien for taxes, interest, penalty, and charges plus its share of the costs, charges, and expenses of the proceedings and sale, the court orders the excess paid, upon due proof, to the owner or the party entitled to it. The court apportions costs across the parcels sold as soon as practicable after the sale, deducts the total costs from the gross proceeds, and equitably apportions the balance to each parcel that sold for more than its share. The clerk pays that balance to the county treasurer, who prorates it among the state, city, township, school district, and other taxing units in proportion to their interest in the lien, and cancels the taxes charged against the parcel. Tax liens on every parcel sold or redeemed in the action are satisfied and discharged of record.
A tax deed does not convey marketable title. Most buyers file a quiet title action before they can resell or insure the property. See the due diligence guide.
Frequently asked questions
Does Clay County, Kansas sell tax liens or tax deeds?
How often does Clay County hold tax deed sales?
I own a property in this sale. Can I stop it?
Where can I find the Clay County tax sale list?
Verified Aug 24, 2026 against official county and state sources.
Tax Sale Atlas publishes educational information about public tax sale processes. This is not legal, financial, or investment advice. Rules, dates, and fees change; confirm with the county office before you bid.
More Kansas counties
Browse all 105 Kansas counties
Compare sale calendars, platforms, and rules across the state, or read the guides before you bid.