Washington County, OK tax sales
How tax deed sales work in Washington County, seat of Bartlesville: 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.
- Next sale
- The second Monday of each June.
- Format
- In person
- Registration
- The Treasurer's office publishes no pre-registration window.
- County office
- 918-337-2810
On this page
How Washington County sells delinquent taxes
Tax deed sale
- Run by
- Washington County Treasurer
- Frequency
- annual
- Typical timing
- The second Monday of each June.
- Registration
- The Treasurer's office publishes no pre-registration window.
When it runs
Registration and deposit
The Treasurer's office publishes no pre-registration window. Bids on resale properties are due at the time of the sale in cash, and office policy states that bidders "will not be allowed to leave and come back with the payment," so arrive with the full purchase price in hand. Call the Treasurer's office at 918-337-2810 to confirm accepted forms of payment and any sale-day sign-in before you travel.
Sale format and venue
Washington County tax sale list and auction calendar
For Washington 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 County-owned property available between resales for the current advertised parcels, then recheck it before the auction.Register to bid
Sale day
The second Monday of each June. 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 Washington County Treasurer as the source to confirm which parcels are actually offered.
Before you bid in Washington County
4 checks
Start with the live sale list
Pull the current advertised parcels from County-owned property available between resales. Lists can change before the sale, so recheck the county source before you price a parcel.Confirm registration and deposit
The Treasurer's office publishes no pre-registration window. Bids on resale properties are due at the time of the sale in cash, and office policy states that bidders "will not be allowed to leave and come back with the payment," so arrive with the full purchase price in hand. Call the Treasurer's office at 918-337-2810 to confirm accepted forms of payment and any sale-day sign-in before you travel.
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
Tax sale office
County notes
- The resale parcel list is not posted online. The Treasurer's office states that lists of the properties become available from the office in May preceding the June auction, so call or visit in early May to obtain it. Unpaid accounts can be reviewed year round through the Treasurer's tax roll search, which offers a "Show Unpaid Taxes Only" filter.
- Washington County keeps a list of county-owned property it took at past resales and can sell between auctions. The current list is dated July 1, 2026 and covers parcels in Bartlesville, Copan and Dewey plus several rural tracts. Some entries are marked pending sale and a few street and drainage strips are marked as not available, so confirm availability with the Treasurer before making an offer.
- Do not mistake the Washington County sheriff sale for the June tax resale. Sheriff sales are mortgage foreclosures held at 10 a.m. in the front lobby of the courthouse on their own dates and are run by the Sheriff's office, not the Treasurer.
- Delinquent special assessments run one year behind ad valorem taxes in this county's resale cycle, so a parcel can reach the June resale on unpaid cleaning and mowing assessments alone. Check both when you research a parcel.
- Office policy sets a December 31 cutoff for paying the oldest delinquent year to keep a parcel out of the resale process. Once a parcel is in that process, taxes must be paid starting with the current year and ending with the oldest, and certified funds are required after April 1, so fewer parcels drop off the list as June approaches.
- The Treasurer also publishes an excess resale funds list showing surplus left from past resales and the claimants it is owed to. Ask the Treasurer's office about the claim process when researching a parcel's sale history.
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 Washington County, Oklahoma sell tax liens or tax deeds?
How often does Washington County hold tax deed sales?
I own a property in this sale. Can I stop it?
Where can I find the Washington 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.
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