County-held certificates of purchase: how it works
County-held certificates of purchase, assigned by the county commissioners
A parcel that cannot be sold at the sale for the taxes, interest, penalties and costs due is bid in for the county by the treasurer, who issues the certificate of purchase to the county without a fee. The board of county commissioners may sell and assign any such certificate at public or private sale at any time, and at a public sale may reject bids and continue the sale until the property is sold. Certificates are assignable by endorsement, and the assignee takes all the original purchaser's rights. The statute leaves the price and procedure to the commissioners, so whether a county offers its certificates over the counter, and on what terms, is a county-level fact to confirm with the treasurer.
Does Wyoming publish a lands-available list?
Wyoming keeps no statewide lands available list. Four years after the sale the treasurer deeds unredeemed county-held parcels to the county, and the county commissioners may then dispose of the property at private sale by a deed signed by the commission chairman and the county clerk. That is a sale of the parcel itself, not of a certificate, and it runs on no statutory schedule.
This route skips the live auction, which means these are the parcels nobody bid on, so the due diligence matters even more. Every state names this inventory differently, and the state-held and struck-off land table maps each local name to the same mechanism. The over-the-counter guide has the cross-state playbook.
Verified Sep 25, 2026 against Wyoming 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.