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Tax Sale Atlas

Woodson County, KS tax sales

How tax deed sales work in Woodson County, seat of Yates 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.

Next sale
There is no fixed annual date.
Format
In person
Registration
Registration is required before you can bid.
County office
620-625-8600 ext 4
Every displayed fact carries a source badge. Verified Aug 24, 2026 against official county and state pages.How we verify
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How Woodson County sells delinquent taxes

No tax lien certificate sale

Kansas counties sell no tax lien certificates to investors. The county treasurer bids the delinquent parcel off to the county itself, and the county then enforces its own first and prior lien through a judicial foreclosure in the district court.

Tax deed sale

In person
Run by
Woodson County Treasurer prepares the sale list, publishes it and registers bidders. The Board of County Commissioners approves the list and is the plaintiff, and the Commission has appointed outside counsel, Klenda Austerman LLC of Wichita, to prosecute the case. The Sheriff conducts the auction under the district court's order of sale, and the court confirms the sale before a sheriff's deed passes title.
Frequency
annual
Typical timing
There is no fixed annual date.
Registration
Registration is required before you can bid.
Sale list
Current tax sale parcel list on the Woodson County Treasurer's Tax Sale page
When it runs
There is no fixed annual date. The Treasurer's page states that "Pursuant to KSA 79-2801 Yearly in October the County Treasurer provides a list of eligible properties to the County Commission. The County Commission then decides if they want to proceed with a Tax Sale." Recent sales have landed in the autumn: the last auction was held October 29, 2025. For the current cycle the county filed its Petition for Tax Sale in Woodson County District Court on July 1, 2026 as case WO-2026-CV-000016, and the parcels are in the abstract phase. The auction date, time and location are set by the court after judgment, then published by the Sheriff once a week for three consecutive weeks in the Yates Center News and posted on the county website.
Registration and deposit

Registration is required before you can bid. Bidders register with the Woodson County Treasurer's office, and registration is also taken on the morning of the sale as advertised in the notice. Every prospective bidder signs a sworn affidavit that they owe no delinquent real estate taxes or delinquent special assessments on the Treasurer's records, and each buyer signs an affidavit of no connection to the previous owner. Treasurer's staff attend the sale to certify bidder eligibility. Winning bids must be paid in full by the end of the business day of the sale, and the buyer pays the Register of Deeds filing fee for the deed that same day. The county's two bidder handouts differ on accepted funds, one limiting payment to cash or cashier's check and the other allowing cash, personal check, money order, cashier's check or credit card, so confirm accepted funds with the Treasurer before you travel. Both state that credit cards are not accepted for the deed recording fee. A buyer who fails to honor a winning bid is barred from future Woodson County tax foreclosure sales and may face legal action by the county.

Sale format and venue
Woodson County sells only at a live public auction. There is no online bidding portal and no third-party auction site, so bidders attend in person. Parcels are offered in the order they appear in the published notice, by legal description and tract number, and are sold as is with no warranties, with the Sheriff conveying title to the real estate only. The county reserves the right to set a minimum bid on any property and may itself bid up to the taxes, interest and costs owed, and tracts can sell for less or more than the amount owed. The winner does not receive a deed at the sale, only a certificate of sale. The county records the sheriff's deed and delivers it after the funds clear and the district court confirms the sale, normally within two to three weeks, mailed to the address on the registration form. Confirmation extinguishes liens of record, but covenants, restrictions and easements of record survive and the buyer takes subject to them. The buyer owes any taxes and assessments not included in the judgment, including the full year's taxes for the calendar year of the auction, and is responsible for obtaining possession, including any eviction. The county states that for twelve months after the deed is recorded the sale can be challenged on the procedures the county followed, and that a successful challenge returns the property to the former owner with the court ordering the purchase price refunded to the buyer, so treat that year as a title risk window and hold off on improvements or resale. The Treasurer's Tax Sale page directs sale questions to 620-625-8605 ext 4, while the Treasurer's main office line is 620-625-8600 ext 4.

Woodson County tax sale list and auction calendar

For Woodson 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.

  1. Get the advertised list

    Use Current tax sale parcel list on the Woodson County Treasurer's Tax Sale page for the current advertised parcels, then recheck it before the auction.
  2. Register to bid

    Registration is required before you can bid. Full requirements are in the sale card above.
  3. Sale day

    There is no fixed annual date. 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.
  4. Confirm with the office

    If the list, platform, and notice disagree, use Woodson County Treasurer prepares the sale list, publishes it and registers bidders. The Board of County Commissioners approves the list and is the plaintiff, and the Commission has appointed outside counsel, Klenda Austerman LLC of Wichita, to prosecute the case. The Sheriff conducts the auction under the district court's order of sale, and the court confirms the sale before a sheriff's deed passes title. as the source to confirm which parcels are actually offered.

Before you bid in Woodson County

  1. Start with the live sale list

    Pull the current advertised parcels from Current tax sale parcel list on the Woodson County Treasurer's Tax Sale page. Lists can change before the sale, so recheck the county source before you price a parcel.
  2. Confirm registration and deposit

    Registration is required before you can bid. Bidders register with the Woodson County Treasurer's office, and registration is also taken on the morning of the sale as advertised in the notice. Every prospective bidder signs a sworn affidavit that they owe no delinquent real estate taxes or delinquent special assessments on the Treasurer's records, and each buyer signs an affidavit of no connection to the previous owner. Treasurer's staff attend the sale to certify bidder eligibility. Winning bids must be paid in full by the end of the business day of the sale, and the buyer pays the Register of Deeds filing fee for the deed that same day. The county's two bidder handouts differ on accepted funds, one limiting payment to cash or cashier's check and the other allowing cash, personal check, money order, cashier's check or credit card, so confirm accepted funds with the Treasurer before you travel. Both state that credit cards are not accepted for the deed recording fee. A buyer who fails to honor a winning bid is barred from future Woodson County tax foreclosure sales and may face legal action by the county.

  3. 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.
  4. 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

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.

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County offices

Tax sale office

Woodson County Treasurer

620-625-8600 ext 4

105 W. Rutledge, Room 105, Yates Center, KS 66783

Official website

County notes

  • The Treasurer's Tax Sale page carries the live parcel list for the pending sale, with item number, tax ID, owner name, property address, town and taxes owed, and marks parcels REDEEMED as owners pay out. The current list runs 56 items across Yates Center, Toronto, Neosho Falls and Piqua, with amounts owed from roughly $75 to about $11,000.
  • Only long delinquent parcels qualify. The county states that a property needs a tax year that is three years old or older, currently 2022 or older, while commercial and vacant properties need only a two year old tax year.
  • Owners can clear a tract out of the sale up to the sale date, so the list on auction morning is shorter than the published one. Once the petition is on file, the county requires all years of taxes to be paid to release a parcel.
  • There is no pre-sale or post-sale private purchase. The county does not sell properties before sale day and does not sell leftovers afterward, and any tract that draws no bid is held for the next tax sale unless the owner pays. To buy a listed property off the auction you must deal with the current owner and clear the taxes before sale day.
  • The county keeps no mailing list of interested bidders. Notice runs for three consecutive weeks in the Yates Center News and the notice plus the parcel list go on the county website once the court orders the sale.
  • Ownership stays with the current owner until the sale, so you may not enter a listed property without the owner's permission. Plan your diligence from the road, the Appraiser's parcel search and the Register of Deeds.
  • Eligibility is restricted. Anyone owing delinquent real estate taxes or special assessments in Woodson County is barred, as are owners, mortgagees, relatives such as a parent, grandparent, child, grandchild or spouse of an owner, an officer of a corporation that owns the tract, and anyone buying with intent to transfer the property to a barred person. Buying to let the current owner or occupant stay is also prohibited.
  • A sheriff's deed can make title insurance and mortgage financing harder to obtain and may affect resale, which the county tells buyers directly.
  • Redemption ends on the day of the sheriff's sale under K.S.A. 79-2803. There is no redemption period after a Kansas tax sale. The twelve month window to open, vacate or set aside the judgment or sale is a title challenge, not a right to buy the property back.
  • The county attorney's office publishes two bidder handouts, a Tax Foreclosure Sale brochure with frequently asked questions and a General Information Regarding the Tax Sale sheet. Read both before 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.
Governing statute
K.S.A. Chapter 79, Article 28 (79-2801 et seq.)

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.

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Frequently asked questions

Does Woodson County, Kansas sell tax liens or tax deeds?

Tax deeds. Kansas sells no tax lien certificates to investors; the county sells the property itself at a public tax sale.

How often does Woodson County hold tax deed sales?

Woodson County holds its tax deed sale once a year. There is no fixed annual date. Each sale is scheduled and advertised in advance, so check the county's tax deed calendar for the next posted date.

I own a property in this sale. Can I stop it?

Often yes, by paying the overdue taxes, interest, and costs before the deadline. Kansas's redemption rule: Runs BEFORE the sale and ends on the day of the sheriff's sale. One, two, or three years from the county's September bid-off depending on the parcel, then a further right to redeem at the courthouse until the day of sale. Kansas has no redemption period after the sale. Call the Woodson County Treasurer prepares the sale list, publishes it and registers bidders. The Board of County Commissioners approves the list and is the plaintiff, and the Commission has appointed outside counsel, Klenda Austerman LLC of Wichita, to prosecute the case. The Sheriff conducts the auction under the district court's order of sale, and the court confirms the sale before a sheriff's deed passes title. as early as possible for your exact payoff and options; deadlines are strict. Free help: lawhelp.org lists legal aid programs, and consumerfinance.gov lists HUD-approved housing counselors.

Where can I find the Woodson County tax sale list?

Woodson County posts its tax sale list at ks482.cichosting.com. Lists go up ahead of each sale and keep changing until the sale date, so confirm every parcel against the county's legal advertisement before you bid.

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.

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