Miner County, SD tax sales
Tax Sale Atlas maps the Miner County, SD tax sale, one of 3,131 counties in 51 states. South Dakota sells tax lien certificates paying up to 10%. Sale office, calendar and list locations read from state rules plus what the county publishes on Oct 6, 2026.
How tax lien and tax deed sales work in Miner County, seat of Howard: sale calendar, auction platform, over-the-counter lists, and the offices that run each sale.
New to tax sales? Read how South Dakota tax sales work or look terms up in the glossary.
- Next tax deed sale
- No fixed annual date.
- Format
- In person
- Registration
- No registration step.
- County office
- (605) 772-4652
Every displayed fact carries a source badge. Verified Oct 6, 2026 against official county and state pages.How we verify
On this page
How Miner County sells delinquent taxes
Tax certificate sale (lien)
- Run by
- Miner County Treasurer
- Frequency
- annual
- Typical timing
- Third Monday of December each year.
- Registration
- No online registration and no statutory pre-registration deadline.
- Next expected
- on the third Monday in December, 2026 (window; exact date posts closer to the sale)
When it runs
Third Monday of December each year. SDCL 10-23-7 directs the treasurer to offer tax certificates at public sale at the courthouse between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on the third Monday of December for real property with unpaid taxes for the preceding year or years, and lets the treasurer adjourn the sale from day to day until every certificate has been offered.
Registration and deposit
No online registration and no statutory pre-registration deadline. Bidding is in person at the Miner County Courthouse, 401 N. Main St. in Howard, during the 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. sale window. Call the Treasurer at (605) 772-4652 before sale day to confirm what the office asks of a bidder and how payment must be made. A bidder who wins and then fails to pay lets the treasurer re-offer the certificate and recover the amount by civil action under SDCL 10-23-9.
Sale format and venue
Miner County holds any certificate sale live and in person at the courthouse in Howard. There is no online auction platform and no internet bidding. Bidding is a bid down of the interest rate: under SDCL 10-23-8 a bidder offers the full amount of taxes, interest and costs due and states the lowest annual interest rate at which the bidder will carry the taxes, and the lowest rate wins. The price is fixed at the delinquent amount, so there is no premium. Any bid above ten percent per year is invalid and no minimum rate is set, so competition can carry the rate down to zero. On redemption the county commission may by resolution deduct a fee of up to fifty dollars from the money paid to the certificate holder, and that fee cannot be charged to the property owner. The rule that matters most for an outside investor: under SDCL 10-23-28.1 no South Dakota county may sell a tax certificate unless its board of county commissioners has adopted a resolution waiving that prohibition, and otherwise the county holds every certificate it issues. In Miner County the county has been the holder on delinquent parcels, and on the former Carthage school parcel the commission has weighed assigning the certificate to the City of Carthage rather than offering it for sale. Confirm with the Treasurer that certificates are actually available to private buyers before travelling to Howard in December. The treasurer publishes the sale notice once during the week before the sale in the official county newspaper and mails notice to the owner of record at least fourteen days ahead. A certificate that goes unsold for want of bidders is sold at private sale at the treasurer's office to anyone who pays the taxes, penalty and costs due (SDCL 10-23-12), and SDCL 10-23-28 lets a buyer take an assignment of a county held certificate by paying the taxes, penalty, interest, costs of sale and transfer, and every unpaid or subsequent tax.
Source: SDCL 10-23-7, Time and place of annual sale, South Dakota Codified Laws· Verified Oct 6, 2026
Tax deed sale
- Run by
- Miner County Board of Commissioners, on the Treasurer's request, with the auction held at a commission meeting at the Miner County Courthouse in Howard
- Frequency
- annual
- Typical timing
- No fixed annual date.
- Registration
- No registration step.
When it runs
No fixed annual date. A sale happens only after Miner County takes a tax deed on a parcel; SDCL 10-25-39.1 then requires the county to declare the property surplus and sell it within one year of the deed, with notice published at least twice and the first publication at least thirty days before the sale. The county's 2024 sale followed this pattern: at the Treasurer's request the commission declared a tax deed parcel in Carthage surplus at its November 19, 2024 meeting and set the auction for December 17, 2024 at 10:00 a.m., held during that day's regular commission meeting.
Registration and deposit
Sale format and venue
This is a sale of land the county already owns, not a lien auction. At the December 17, 2024 sale the chairman opened bidding at the delinquent tax amount owed for 2017 through 2023 ($4,853.52); when no one bid that amount he asked for an opening bid at any amount, the board awarded the lot for $6,000, and the county prepared a quit claim deed to the buyer. The commission had stated that the parcel's taxes would be abated after the auction. The next candidate is the former Carthage school property, with $24,751.66 in delinquent taxes at the end of May 2026. The county has not taken the tax deed; as of September 22, 2026 it is waiting on a contractor's asbestos assessment, due in the coming months, before deciding whether to move forward with the tax deed process, and the commission has also weighed assigning the certificate to the City of Carthage. Watch commission agendas and the official county newspaper for a surplus declaration, then the auction date. Under SDCL 10-25-39.2, in force since February 2024, any person other than a county who takes a tax deed must offer the property at public auction within one year and is compensated only as on redemption of the certificate, so a certificate is a route to interest rather than to keeping the land.
Source: Board of Commissioners minutes, December 17, 2024, Miner County· Verified Oct 6, 2026
Miner County tax sale list and auction calendar
For Miner 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.
Confirm the advertised parcel list
Miner County publishes no tax sale list online. The Miner County Board of Commissioners advertises the parcels ahead of the sale rather than posting them, so the list reaches bidders through the county legal newspaper and the office itself. Call (605) 772-4652 to ask for the current advertisement.Register to bid
Sale day
No fixed annual date. The sale is live and in person; there is no online bidding platform. Confirm the venue and hour with the Miner County Board of Commissioners before you go.Confirm with the office
If the list, platform, and notice disagree, use the Miner County Board of Commissioners as the source to confirm which parcels are actually offered.
Before you bid in Miner County
4 checks
Confirm the parcel list before pricing
There is no online list to price against. Miner County advertises the parcels before the sale rather than posting them, so get the advertisement from the office on (605) 772-4652 and price from the parcel numbers it carries.Check the state rules that change the bid
Read the South Dakota 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 South Dakota 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 liens and deeds
Three routes exist and each runs through a county office. A certificate that stayed unsold for want of bidders must be sold at private sale at the treasurer's office to any person who pays the taxes, penalty and costs due. A person may also buy the county's interest in a certificate the treasurer bid off, by paying the taxes, penalty, interest and costs of sale and transfer plus every unpaid and subsequent tax, after which the treasurer assigns the certificate and the buyer holds the rights of an original purchaser. Both routes are closed in a county whose commissioners have not waived SDCL 10-23-28.1. Separately, tax deed property the county offered that drew no bid may be sold at private sale within twelve months for not less than ninety percent of the appraised value, without further publication or appraisal. Ask the county treasurer about certificates and the county auditor about unsold deeded parcels.
New to this path? Read how over-the-counter certificates work. Every state has its own name for what goes unsold, so check what South Dakota calls its leftover tax-sale inventory.
Use the arrow keys to switch between these sections.
County offices
Tax Collector (runs the certificate sale)
Miner County Courthouse, 401 N. Main St., 1st Floor, Howard, SD 57349. Mailing address: Miner Co Treasurer, PO Box 426, Howard, SD 57349
Official websiteCounty notes
- The Treasurer is Brittany Yanish and the Deputy Treasurer is Shellie Bluhm. The office is on the first floor of the Miner County Courthouse, at Park Ave. and Main St., and is open Monday through Friday, 7:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. and 12:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. The office fax is (605) 772-4203, and it accepts Visa, Mastercard and Discover credit or debit cards in person or by phone for a transaction fee.
- Mail reaches the office at Miner Co Treasurer, PO Box 426, Howard, SD 57349.
- The sale notice and the delinquent list run in The Miner County Pioneer, which the commission designated as the official county newspaper for 2026. The county posts no delinquent tax list, sale calendar or property tax search online, so follow the paper or call the Treasurer for the current year's list.
- Surplus tax deed parcels are sold at a regular commission meeting at the courthouse in Howard, and the commission minutes on the county website are where a surplus declaration and auction date first appear.
- Anyone may redeem until a tax deed issues, paying the amount on the certificate plus interest at the rate that was bid from the date of purchase, plus any subsequent taxes the holder paid and interest on those at the same rate.
- A certificate holder cannot begin deed proceedings until three years after the sale, and all rights are barred six years after the sale under SDCL 10-25-16. The notice of intention to take a tax deed must be personally served on the owner of record, the person in possession and the person the property is taxed to; other interested parties may be served by publication for two successive weeks, and redemption runs for a further sixty days after the affidavit of completed service is filed with the Treasurer. Notice costs, including records search and attorney fee, are capped at four hundred dollars and added to the redemption amount.
- The county Register of Deeds records the tax deed. The Treasurer prepares and signs the deed, attested by the County Auditor, for a five dollar fee.
South Dakota rules
- Redemption
- There is no fixed redemption deadline that starts at the sale. SDCL 10-24-1 lets any person redeem at any time before a tax deed is issued. What sets the outer limit is the deed process: SDCL 10-25-1 bars the certificate holder from starting that process until three years after the certificate sale, and SDCL 10-25-8 keeps the right to redeem alive until sixty days after the affidavit of completed service of the notice of intention is filed with the treasurer. Missing that sixty-day window passes the owner's, mortgagee's and lienholder's interests to the certificate holder. After the deed is recorded, the former owner has one hundred eighty days to bring an action to recover possession or to avoid the deed, which is a limitation period rather than a further right to redeem.
- Deed deposit
- Chapter 6-13 sets no deposit for a cash sale. A buyer taking an installment contract must deposit the cash portion with the fiscal officer as soon as the bid is accepted, and the board can still decline to approve the sale, in which case the deposit is returned. A separate rule bars a bidder from the sale entirely: under SDCL 10-25-45 a county may refuse a bid from any person who is not current on all property taxes due within that county. Payment methods and any county-set deposit are county practice rather than statute, so confirm them with the county before bidding.
- Surplus proceeds
- The county first deducts the expenses of taking the tax deed and of the sale. What remains is prorated to the taxing districts on the levies for the most recent year included in the proceeds until all tax and interest is paid. Any surplus left after taxes, penalty, interest, county liens and other costs must be returned to the prior owner of record, and if that owner cannot be found within one hundred eighty days the surplus is transferred to the Unclaimed Property Division under SDCL chapter 43-41B. The same distribution binds a private buyer. SDCL 10-25-39.2, effective February 12, 2024, requires any person other than a county who acquires property by tax deed after being issued a tax certificate to offer that property at public auction under chapter 6-13 within one year of the deed, and entitles that seller only to compensation in the same manner as a redemption under SDCL 10-24-1. A South Dakota certificate is therefore a route to being paid what the certificate is worth, not a route to keeping the land.
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 Miner County, South Dakota sell tax liens or tax deeds?
Miner County follows South Dakota's tax lien state system.
When is the Miner County tax certificate sale?
Third Monday of December each year. SDCL 10-23-7 directs the treasurer to offer tax certificates at public sale at the courthouse between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. on the third Monday of December for real property with unpaid taxes for the preceding year or years, and lets the treasurer adjourn the sale from day to day until every certificate has been offered. The sale is held in person. Always confirm the exact date with the County Treasurer before the sale.
How often does Miner County hold tax deed sales?
Miner County holds tax deed sales once a year. 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. South Dakota's redemption rule: Open until a tax deed issues; a deed cannot be sought until 3 years after the certificate sale, and redemption then runs until 60 days after completed service of the notice of intention. Call the Miner County Board of Commissioners 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.
Verified Oct 6, 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 office that runs the sale before you bid.
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