Ellis County, OK tax sales
How tax deed sales work in Ellis County, seat of Arnett: sale calendar, auction platform, over-the-counter lists, and the offices that run each sale.
New to tax sales? Read how Oklahoma tax sales work or look terms up in the glossary.
- Announcements
- Amounts owed are computed to the sale date, so figures in the published list are good only to that day.
- Format
- In person
- Registration
- Bidding is in person and there is no online bidder registration.
- County office
- 580-885-7670
On this page
How Ellis County sells delinquent taxes
Tax deed sale
- Run by
- Ellis County Treasurer
- Frequency
- annual
- Registration
- Bidding is in person and there is no online bidder registration.
When it runs
Registration and deposit
Bidding is in person and there is no online bidder registration. Come to the Treasurer's office in the Arnett courthouse when the sale opens and bid; each parcel goes to the highest competitive bidder and the county's notice calls for cash. A bid only counts if it reaches the lesser of two thirds of the parcel's assessed value for the current fiscal year or the full amount of taxes, penalties, interest and costs owed. The winner also pays the deed fee and the county's listing and advertising costs on top of the bid. Call the Treasurer at 580-885-7670 before the sale to confirm the opening hour and which funds the office will accept.
Sale format and venue
Ellis County tax sale list and auction calendar
For Ellis 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. If the parcels on this list are vacant land rather than houses, what buying land at a tax sale hands you is the place to start.
Get the advertised list
Use Resale notice and parcel list in the Northwest Oklahoman legal notices 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 Ellis County Treasurer as the source to confirm which parcels are actually offered.
Before you bid in Ellis County
4 checks
Start with the live sale list
Pull the current advertised parcels from Resale notice and parcel list in the Northwest Oklahoman legal notices. Lists can change before the sale, so recheck the county source before you price a parcel.Confirm registration and deposit
Bidding is in person and there is no online bidder registration. Come to the Treasurer's office in the Arnett courthouse when the sale opens and bid; each parcel goes to the highest competitive bidder and the county's notice calls for cash. A bid only counts if it reaches the lesser of two thirds of the parcel's assessed value for the current fiscal year or the full amount of taxes, penalties, interest and costs owed. The winner also pays the deed fee and the county's listing and advertising costs on top of the bid. Call the Treasurer at 580-885-7670 before the sale to confirm the opening hour and which funds the office will accept.
Check the state rules that change the bid
Read the Oklahoma due-diligence checklist before bidding. Redemption, liens that survive a tax deed, title cleanup, and payment deadlines can change what a parcel is worth. Which liens survive is state law, so read what survives a tax deed in Oklahoma before you price the title work.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
Oklahoma has no certificate to buy over the counter. What a county can sell between resales is its own stock of parcels bid off at a past resale and held by the board of county commissioners. There are two routes. A buyer can submit a bid to the treasurer, who then advertises it once in each of the three consecutive weeks before a stated sale date; on that date the parcel goes to the highest competitive bidder for cash or certified funds, or back to the original bidder if nobody outbids them. Or the county can hold a periodic auction of its resale stock at a time the treasurer sets. Either way the sale needs the approval of the board of county commissioners, a bid below the taxes owed at the original resale also needs the county excise board, and the buyer covers advertising, sale costs and the recording fee on top of the bid. Counties usually publish this inventory as a county-owned property list, on no fixed schedule.
New to this path? Read how over-the-counter purchases work. Every state has its own name for what goes unsold, so check what Oklahoma calls its leftover tax-sale inventory.
Use the arrow keys to switch between these sections.
County offices
County notes
- Ellis County sells the deed itself once a year and sells nothing else. There is no tax lien certificate here, no interest rate to bid down and no county-held certificate list, so the June resale is the only regular way to buy from the Treasurer.
- The parcel list runs in the Northwest Oklahoman, the Shattuck paper, for four consecutive weeks before the sale. The 2026 list ran May 14, 21 and 28 and June 4, and each entry carries the tax identification number, the legal description, the owner of record, and the tax, penalty and fees owed year by year. The paper's free legal notices page is the practical way to read it without a trip to Arnett.
- Two shared sources cover this county, and both carry more than Ellis County. The Treasurer's website is one county page on the TM Consulting platform that serves about 75 of Oklahoma's 77 counties, and the newspaper's legal notices page also runs state agency and municipal notices. Confirm the county name on the page or in the notice heading before taking a date or a parcel figure from either.
- An owner can pay off right up to the moment bidding opens, so the published list is longer than what actually sells. Ask the Treasurer for the live list on the morning of the sale before you drive out.
- A resale deed here carries the surface and only the mineral interest the surface owner still held. Severed oil and gas interests stay with whoever owns them, which matters in Ellis County because minerals are commonly split off from the surface.
- Property the county takes when no bid meets the minimum does not sit on a standing for-sale list. A buyer submits a bid to the Treasurer, who advertises it for three weeks and then holds a short sale where higher bids are taken, subject to approval by the Board of County Commissioners. That process produced a sale on April 17, 2026 at 10:00 a.m. in the Treasurer's office on a lot in the original town of Gage opened at a $500 bid. Call the Treasurer to ask what the county currently holds.
Oklahoma rules
- Redemption
- Oklahoma gives the owner a long runway and then a hard stop. Redemption is open from the moment the taxes go delinquent right up to the start of the resale auction, which is three years or more. Once the auction begins, the right is gone: there is no post-sale redemption period, no owner buyback window and no premium for the buyer to collect, which is what separates Oklahoma from a redeemable-deed state such as Texas or Georgia. The single exception is for a person under a legal disability. A minor, or a person who is incapacitated or partially incapacitated, may redeem within one year after the disability ends, and 68 O.S. 3131(A) repeats the same one-year window after removal of the disability. The statute says in terms that incapacity here means mental incapacity only and that physical disability is not covered.
- Deed deposit
- Oklahoma sets no statewide deposit percentage and no statutory bidder registration. The statute requires payment in cash or certified funds, and permits online payment where the resale is run online. Counties run this as a cash sale with registration in the days before. Comanche County registered bidders from May 26 to June 5, 2026 and again from 8:30 a.m. on sale day, took cash or cashier's check on deposit in trust only through June 2, and told bidders they must have cash in hand at the moment of bidding. Oklahoma County ran the same shape with a wire cutoff of June 4 and a cashier's check cutoff of June 1. Confirm the county's registration window, accepted funds and cutoffs before travelling.
- Surplus proceeds
- When a parcel sells for more than the taxes, penalties, interest and costs due on it, the treasurer notifies the Oklahoma Tax Commission within 30 days. The Tax Commission has 60 days to report any outstanding state tax liabilities attached to the parcel, whether or not a tax warrant was filed, and the treasurer remits to it the lesser of those liabilities or the excess proceeds. Whatever is left is held in a separate fund for the record owner as of the date the resale began, and may be withdrawn any time within one year. Any assignment of the right to those excess proceeds made on or after the day the resale began is void, which closes the courthouse-steps surplus assignment trade. Money not claimed within the year is credited to the county resale property fund.
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 Ellis County, Oklahoma sell tax liens or tax deeds?
How often does Ellis County hold tax deed sales?
I own a property in this sale. Can I stop it?
Where can I find the Ellis County tax sale list?
Verified Aug 31, 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 Oklahoma counties
Browse all 77 Oklahoma counties
Compare sale calendars, platforms, and rules across the state, or read the guides before you bid.