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Tax Sale Atlas

Cherry County, NE tax sales

How tax lien sales work in Cherry County, seat of Valentine: sale calendar, auction platform, over-the-counter lists, and the offices that run each sale.

New to tax sales? Read how Nebraska tax sales work or look terms up in the glossary.

Next sale
Nebraska holds no tax deed auction.
Format
In person
Registration
Register in advance with the Treasurer's office.
County office
402-376-1580
Every displayed fact carries a source badge. Verified Aug 24, 2026 against official county and state pages.How we verify
On this page

How Cherry County sells delinquent taxes

From lien to deed

Nebraska holds no county tax deed auction. A certificate holder reaches title down one of two roads, and which road is available depends on how much equity is in the parcel. Three years after the date of the tax sale, and after serving the Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-1831 notice at least three months in advance, the holder may apply to the county treasurer for a tax deed. That road is open only where 110 percent of the parcel's assessed value at the time of the application, less the amount that would be needed to redeem it, is twenty five thousand dollars or less. Where the equity is larger the holder must instead foreclose the certificate in the district court of the county where the land lies, in the same manner as a real estate mortgage foreclosure. Either step has to be taken within nine months after the expiration of three years from the date of sale, or nine months after two years where the holder is a land bank and the parcel qualifies as vacant and abandoned. Missing the window voids the certificate.

Tax certificate sale (lien)

In person
Run by
Cherry County Treasurer's Office
Frequency
annual
Registration
Register in advance with the Treasurer's office.
Next expected
on the first Monday in March, 2027 (window; exact date posts closer to the sale)
Sale list
Public tax sale information, delinquent list and bidder forms
When it runs
First Monday in March at 10:00 a.m. Central, in the Cherry County Courthouse Conference Room at 365 N Main St, Valentine. The Treasurer's office states the "Cherry County Tax Sale is held the first Monday in March each year at 10:00 A.M. at the Cherry County Courthouse Conference Room, 365 N Main St, Valentine, NE" and asks bidders to check in by 9:30 A.M. The published notice for the 2026 sale set it for March 2, 2026 and said the sale continues "until all said taxes have been sold or paid." Once the public sale closes, any remaining delinquent taxes stay available at private tax sale through the Treasurer's office.
Registration and deposit

Register in advance with the Treasurer's office. A $25.00 non-refundable registration fee must accompany the Cherry County Tax Sale Registration Form, a blank check used to process tax certificates, and a completed Form W-9. Bidders must be at least 19 years old, one bidder cannot bid for more than one company, and one person must personally represent each company at the sale. All forms and the fee are due at the Treasurer's office by 4:30 p.m. Central on the Thursday before the sale date, and registrations are not taken at the door. Send or deliver forms to Cherry County Treasurer, PO Box 290, Valentine, NE 69201, or to the courthouse office at 365 N Main Street #6. Bidder numbers are drawn before the sale and pre-assigned to each pre-registered bidder. Bring your own clipboard or notebook, since the county provides none.

Sale format and venue
Cherry County sells tax sale certificates at a live, in person sale in the courthouse conference room rather than through an online auction platform, and the Treasurer's office does not accept purchases by fax or telephone. Nothing is bid. Nebraska's certificate rate is fixed at 14 percent, so parcels are allocated by a drawn round robin instead of competitive bidding: numbers drawn before the sale set the order, each round gives every bidder one pick, and a bidder names a parcel with its amount and parcel number and either buys it or passes before the turn moves on, continuing until all parcels are sold or every bidder is done. The county's registration form adds that parcels are offered from the largest principal amount down to the smallest. The purchase price covers the delinquent taxes, interest and advertising plus any other delinquent tax assessed against the parcel. Payment at the sale may be cash, personal check or money order, a $25.00 fee applies to each certificate sold and is not refunded on redemption, and reassigning a certificate costs an additional $20.00. The Treasurer holds purchased certificates in the office for safekeeping and sends payment when they redeem. A certificate buys the delinquent taxes, not the property, and the holder must pay each year's subsequent taxes as they become delinquent. Redemption runs three years. If the owner does not redeem, the county states the holder then has six months to act, either by applying to the Treasurer for a tax deed after serving the statutory notice or by foreclosing in district court, and it points buyers to Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-1801 through 77-1941 while declining to give any legal guidance on certificates, so plan on your own counsel at maturity.
Source: Public Tax Sale Information, Cherry County Treasurer· Verified Aug 24, 2026

Cherry County tax sale list and auction calendar

For Cherry 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 Public tax sale information, delinquent list and bidder forms for the current advertised parcels, then recheck it before the auction.

  2. Register to bid

    Register in advance with the Treasurer's office. Full requirements are in the sale card above.

  3. Sale day

    Nebraska holds no tax deed auction. 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 County Treasurer for the administrative deed, or the sheriff under a district court decree as the source to confirm which parcels are actually offered.

Before you bid in Cherry County

  1. Start with the live sale list

    Pull the current advertised parcels from Public tax sale information, delinquent list and bidder forms. Lists can change before the sale, so recheck the county source before you price a parcel.

  2. Confirm registration and deposit

    Register in advance with the Treasurer's office. A $25.00 non-refundable registration fee must accompany the Cherry County Tax Sale Registration Form, a blank check used to process tax certificates, and a completed Form W-9. Bidders must be at least 19 years old, one bidder cannot bid for more than one company, and one person must personally represent each company at the sale. All forms and the fee are due at the Treasurer's office by 4:30 p.m. Central on the Thursday before the sale date, and registrations are not taken at the door. Send or deliver forms to Cherry County Treasurer, PO Box 290, Valentine, NE 69201, or to the courthouse office at 365 N Main Street #6. Bidder numbers are drawn before the sale and pre-assigned to each pre-registered bidder. Bring your own clipboard or notebook, since the county provides none.

  3. Check the state rules that change the bid

    Read the Nebraska 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

Two routes reach parcels outside the March sale, and both run through the county treasurer. Any parcel that stayed unsold at the public sale for want of bidders must then be sold at private sale at the treasurer's office to any person who pays the taxes, penalty, and costs; the certificate issued that way is marked sold for taxes at private sale. Separately, where the county board bought a parcel in the county's name because it drew no bidder, the treasurer holds that certificate and may assign it at any time to anyone willing to pay the face amount plus 14 percent interest from the date of the certificate, with the county clerk endorsing the assignment and the twenty five dollar issuance fee due from the buyer. If the parcel lies inside a municipality that has created a land bank, the treasurer must give the land bank the first opportunity to acquire the county's certificate. Ask the county treasurer which parcels are open to private sale and which county held certificates are available for assignment.

New to this path? Read how over-the-counter certificates work.

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County offices

Tax Collector (runs the certificate sale)

Cherry County Treasurer's Office

402-376-1580

365 N Main Street #6, Valentine, NE 69201 (mailing: PO Box 290, Valentine, NE 69201)

Official website

County notes

  • Kathy Hammond is the Cherry County Treasurer and runs the annual tax sale. Office hours are Monday through Thursday 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. and Friday 8:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., Central, and the office fax is 402-376-3095.
  • The delinquent list is advertised in the Valentine Midland News for three consecutive weeks in February before the sale, and the Treasurer also posts it through Nebraska Taxes Online. The office asks bidders to verify parcels against the published list before sale day.
  • Registration closes at 4:30 p.m. Central on the Thursday before the first Monday in March and nothing is accepted at the door, so a walk-in bidder cannot participate that year.
  • Advertised amounts are face amounts only. Interest and penalties are added through the day payment is actually made, and the Treasurer's published notice adds a $150 administrative notification fee under Neb. Rev. Stat. 77-1818(2).
  • The Treasurer's notice is explicit that this is not a foreclosure sale of lands and lots but a sale of taxes only, so a winning bidder leaves with a certificate rather than title.
  • Inventory is small. The 2026 advertised list carried 31 parcels totaling well under $20,000 in face amounts, mixing town lots in Valentine, Merriman, Kilgore, Wood Lake, Crookston and Cody with several large Sandhills ranch tracts, and individual amounts ranged from under $2 to about $1,900.

Nebraska rules

Max interest rate
14% per year, fixed by statute (nothing is bid)
Minimum return
No statutory floor; every certificate earns the same statutory rate
Redemption
Nebraska does not run a redemption clock that simply expires. The right to redeem stays open until the certificate holder files the application for a tax deed with the county treasurer, and the treasurer may not accept a redemption after the close of business on the day that application arrives. Because the holder cannot apply until three years after the sale, and must first serve a notice at least three months before applying that says in sixteen point type UNLESS YOU ACT YOU WILL LOSE THIS PROPERTY, the ordinary parcel carries a redemption window of about three years and three months and the owner gets a written warning inside it. Several conditions of the parcel or of its owner change that window, and they are recorded as tracks below. On the foreclosure road the window is different again: redemption stays open until the district court confirms the sheriff's sale.
Surplus proceeds
Nebraska returns the owner's equity on both roads. On the administrative road, within thirty days after the deed is recorded the grantee must pay the surplus to the previous owner. The surplus is the resale price if the grantee has already sold the parcel, or the assessed value shown in the county assessor's records at the time of the deed application if the grantee has not, less the amount that would have been needed to redeem the parcel, less the amount needed to pay all encumbrances on it, and less an administrative fee of five hundred dollars, or reasonable attorney fees in the case of a judicial foreclosure, which the grantee may keep to offset the cost of getting the deed. On the foreclosure road, any surplus remaining after all costs and taxes on a parcel are satisfied is applied the way surplus is applied in a mortgage foreclosure, and proceeds from one parcel may not be applied to the taxes on another except as the decree directs.
Governing statute
Neb. Rev. Stat. Chapter 77, Article 18 (77-1801 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 Cherry County, Nebraska sell tax liens or tax deeds?

Tax lien certificates. In Nebraska investors buy the lien, not the property; the County Treasurer runs the sale.

When is the Cherry County tax certificate sale?

First Monday in March at 10:00 a.m. Central, in the Cherry County Courthouse Conference Room at 365 N Main St, Valentine. The Treasurer's office states the "Cherry County Tax Sale is held the first Monday in March each year at 10:00 A.M. at the Cherry County Courthouse Conference Room, 365 N Main St, Valentine, NE" and asks bidders to check in by 9:30 A.M. The published notice for the 2026 sale set it for March 2, 2026 and said the sale continues "until all said taxes have been sold or paid." Once the public sale closes, any remaining delinquent taxes stay available at private tax sale through the Treasurer's office. The sale is held in person. Always confirm the exact date with the County Treasurer before the sale.

How often does Cherry County hold tax deed sales?

Cherry County holds its tax deed sale none. Nebraska holds no tax deed auction. 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. Nebraska's redemption rule: 3 years from the tax sale before the holder may apply for a treasurer's tax deed, and the owner may redeem right up to the day that application is filed. Call the County Treasurer for the administrative deed, or the sheriff under a district court decree 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 Cherry County tax sale list?

Cherry County posts its tax sale list at cherrycountyne.gov. 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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