To buy a tax lien in West Virginia you bid on a certificate, not on the property. The county certificate sale is run by the West Virginia State Auditor. You are buying the delinquent debt, the statutory interest it earns, and the right to force a sale if the owner never repays.
Each step below is drawn from West Virginia statute, not general advice. The exact sale dates, platform, and deposit amounts are set county by county, so confirm the specifics on your county page before you register.
New here? Most beginners start with a certificate (the lien path). The deed steps below apply once you hold a certificate long enough to force a sale, or you bid directly at a tax deed auction. Not sure which is for you? Start with tax lien vs tax deed.
Learn the timeline and lien priority
West Virginia property taxes are billed in two installments. The first half is payable September 1 and becomes delinquent October 1; the second half is payable the following March 1 and becomes delinquent April 1. Paying on or before the payable date earns a two and one half percent discount, and once taxes are delinquent interest runs at nine percent a year until paid. A lien for the taxes, interest and charges attaches to the real property on July 1 for the taxes payable for the ensuing fiscal year, which is what makes a West Virginia tax lien senior collateral. The sheriff publishes a second delinquent list with a notice of sale on or before September 10 and mails certified notice to owners and recorded lienholders at least 30 days before the sale, then certifies whatever is still unpaid to the State Auditor on October 31. Understand this before you commit any money.
Find the advertised delinquent list
Before the certificate sale, the West Virginia State Auditor advertises the delinquent parcels. The State Auditor holds one public auction a year for each county, at that county's courthouse, during normal courthouse hours on a business day. The Auditor certifies each county's list of lands subject to sale on or after March 1 and on or before August 1, and the auction must be held within 90 days of that certification. The Auditor's own published property tax calendar puts the county auctions in April, May and June. Dates are set centrally and the counties publish nothing, so the schedule comes from the Land Sale Listings at wvsao.gov and from the Auditor's notice of auction, which runs once a week for three consecutive weeks in the county legal newspaper before the sale. Pull that list for your target county and shortlist the parcels worth researching.
Register, deposit, and bid
Register on the county’s certificate-sale platform and fund the required deposit. Bidding runs upward from a statutory minimum bid, and the highest bid wins. Anything you pay above that minimum is a premium, so check how your state treats it before you bid: a premium can earn a different return than the base amount, or none at all. There is no statutory minimum return, so what you earn is decided at the sale. Nothing is bid down in West Virginia and no lien can be bid to zero. Each tax lien is sold to the highest eligible bidder at the Auditor's auction, and the sheriff's published notice fixes the floor at the taxes, interest and charges due on the parcel to the date of sale, so the only competition is on price above that floor. Two rules change who wins. A private nonprofit corporation incorporated in West Virginia, certified under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code, whose principal purpose is building housing or other public facilities, is sold the parcel ahead of the high bidder if it notifies the Auditor of an intention to bid and then submits a bid no more than five percent lower than the high bid. And a sale is not final at the fall of the hammer: the sale is reported to the Auditor within 14 days, and the Auditor either approves it as being in the best interest of the state or disapproves it, refunds the purchase price and puts the parcel back up for sale. Two steps in the West Virginia calendar look like sales and are not. The sheriff's tax lien sale was repealed effective June 10, 2022, so an October or November sheriff sale still advertised on a county page is repealed law rather than a date. And the October 31 certification of the delinquent list to the State Auditor is a transfer of the roll with no bidders, no bidding and no instrument issued, not an auction.
Collect interest or wait out redemption
The statutory rate is one percent a month, which is twelve percent a year, and it runs on the taxes, interest and charges due on the date of the sale rather than on anything bid above that floor. What reaches the purchaser is set by a separate section and is narrower than the rate suggests. On redemption the sheriff pays the purchaser the amount paid at the sale, then any later taxes the purchaser paid with one percent a month from the date of payment, then the cost of preparing the list of those to be served with notice to redeem and any licensed attorney's title examination with one percent a month, capped at five hundred dollars of principal, then any additional statutory costs. That first item states no interest on the amount paid at the sale, and W. Va. Code 11A-3-57(b) directs the sheriff to hold the base plus its one percent a month as surplus for disposition under W. Va. Code 11A-3-64. Senate Bill 552 repealed the sheriff sale redemption sections and left 11A-3-57 and 11A-3-58 untouched, and the Auditor's own public explanation of the bill says the change eliminates the interest purchasers used to collect. Read twelve percent as the rate on carrying costs and confirm the payout on the bid itself with the Auditor's land department before modelling a yield. West Virginia runs three redemption windows in sequence, and only the last one involves the investor. Before the sheriff certifies the parcel to the Auditor on October 31, the owner pays the sheriff the taxes, interest and charges due. After certification and before the Auditor certifies the list for sale, the owner redeems from the Auditor at twelve percent a year on the amount due at certification. After the Auditor's auction, the owner or any other person entitled to pay the taxes, or any lienholder, may redeem at any time before a tax deed is issued. There is no fixed number of days on that last window: it closes when the deed issues, which cannot happen until the Auditor has served the notice to redeem at least 45 days beforehand and at least 30 days have passed since service. A person whose primary residence was sold may petition the Auditor, on grounds of financial hardship, to redeem in up to three installments before the deed is issued. To redeem, the owner pays The taxes, interest and charges due on the date of the sale with interest at one percent a month from the date of sale; all other taxes the purchaser has since paid, with one percent a month from the date of payment; the expense of preparing the list of those to be served with notice to redeem and any licensed attorney's title examination, with one percent a month, capped at five hundred dollars excluding that interest; all additional statutory costs paid by the purchaser; and the Auditor's fee and commission, which is twenty dollars for each item certified plus a commission of seven and one half percent and interest on each sale or redemption, capped at one hundred and twenty dollars. Where the purchaser has not given the Auditor proof of the notice and title examination expenses, the person redeeming pays a flat five hundred dollars plus one percent a month, refundable to them if the purchaser never documents the expense. If they redeem, that payoff is your return; if they never do, the certificate becomes your path to the property.
Or buy over the counter
You do not have to wait for an auction. A parcel that draws no bid at the annual auction, or whose sale the Auditor disapproves, or that was sold within the previous five years and neither redeemed nor deeded because the purchaser never followed through, may be sold by the Auditor with no further auction and no additional advertising. The statute sets a priority order rather than a price auction: first an owner of an adjacent tract or parcel, and if more than one adjacent owner wants the same parcel the Auditor sells to the highest bidder among them; then the municipality; then the county commission; then the West Virginia Land Stewardship Corporation for its Land Bank Program; then any party willing to buy. The price is whatever the Auditor and the purchaser agree, and the Auditor may require the buyer to reimburse the cost of a licensed attorney's title examination or let the buyer engage one at their own cost. The Auditor may refuse a buyer on the same grounds that disqualify an auction bidder, and citizens and entities of a country designated a Country of Particular Concern by the United States Department of State are barred. Operationally the Auditor's land department takes these as written bids with a check, inside a bid window it posts on its Land/County Collections page; the window shown on that page as of September 10, 2026 closed for processing on September 30, 2026. West Virginia keeps no separate lands available list of the Florida kind. Parcels that stay unsold remain with the Auditor under the no-bid status and are offered again at the next auction or sold under the priority order above. Escheated lands and waste and unappropriated lands are handled inside the same annual auction and cannot be redeemed.
One more step: clear the title
Winning a tax deed does not hand you marketable title. Before you can resell to a normal buyer or insure the parcel, you will usually need a quiet title action, which takes months and costs money. Fold that cost into your maximum bid and read what you actually own after a tax deed before you bid. A tax deed also does not wipe out everything: select governmental and municipal liens can survive, and a federal tax lien carries a 120-day IRS redemption right, so check what survives a tax deed too.
Buying tax liens in West Virginia: common questions
How do you buy a tax lien in West Virginia?
Can you buy West Virginia tax liens online?
More West Virginia answers, including redemption and statute detail, are on the West Virginia tax sale FAQ.
New to this? Start with tax lien vs tax deed and the full West Virginia walkthrough, then value a parcel with the due diligence guide.
Steps verified Sep 10, 2026 against West Virginia statutes.
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.