Columbia County, Arkansas

Sep 22, 2026 · in 10 days· 10:00

Tax Deedscheduledvia County site

Parcels

Opening bids

$35,639

all parcels priced

Redemption

None

clear title at sale

Quiet title

$3K–$5K

typically required

AR caveats

COSL conveys by limited warranty deed and warrants nothing about title. A quiet title or confirmation action is needed for marketability, and title insurance being unavailable is expressly not grounds to cancel the sale.
The 90-day window to contest the conveyance (§ 26-37-203) is a title risk, not a redemption right, and extends to two years after removal of disability for minors, the incapacitated, and wartime service members.
HISTORICAL OUTCOMES BEFORE MID-2023 ARE A DIFFERENT REGIME. Act 241 of 2023 removed post-sale redemption; Arkansas results recorded under the prior rules describe a redeemable position and must not be pooled with post-Act sales when fitting a redemption rate. Current inventory is entirely post-Act.
Quiet-title cost is market practice, not statute — no Arkansas bar fee survey publishes one. The range is an operator estimate; a contested action or curative work costs materially more.
SURVIVING LIENS ARE NOT PRICED HERE. Municipal code-enforcement and clean-up liens (§ 14-54-903) and special improvement district assessments can survive and are parcel-specific — 'HARDING DRAIN IMP DISTRICT' appears on Jefferson County parcels in our own data. IRS liens turn on notice and keep a 120-day redemption right if notice was defective. Mortgages, state tax liens and judgment liens are generally extinguished where COSL gave proper statutory notice. Check each parcel; the closing contingency does not cover these.
The published opening bid is taxes, penalties, interest and costs — the statutory minimum bid under § 26-37-202, never an assessed or market value.
The 90-day contest bar is not absolute. § 26-37-203(d) preserves a taxpayer's right to contest the deed on the ground that the taxes were actually paid, with no 90-day limit stated — a residual challenge route that outlives the window and is the reason to check payment history rather than only the notice trail. § 26-37-203(b)(2) tolls the bar for two years after removal of disability for minors, the mentally incapacitated, and those serving in the armed forces in time of war.
§ 26-37-203(c) cuts the other way and favours the purchaser: a deed issued after 1 January 1987 is not void or voidable merely because the county failed to strictly comply with the tax-delinquent land laws.

Columbia County rulesstate defaults

Sale type: Tax Deed
Redemption period: None after the sale — the owner's right ends at 4:00 p.m. the last business day before it (A.C.A. § 26-37-202)
Investor return: N/A — outright deed transfer
Governing statute: Arkansas Code Title 26, Ch. 37 (§§ 26-37-202 sale and conveyance, 26-37-203 contest window)
Population: 22,024 residents

Notes

State-run through the Commissioner of State Lands, not individual counties. A separate 90-day window to contest the validity of the conveyance (§ 26-37-203) is a title risk rather than a redemption right — it earns the purchaser nothing and extends to two years after removal of disability for minors, the incapacitated, and wartime service members. COSL conveys by limited warranty deed and warrants nothing about title.

Inherited from Arkansas rather than researched for Columbia: type, redemption, returns, statute, notes.

Parcels — ranked by assessed value over opening bid

Parcel	Address	Opening bid	Assessed	Spread	Status
00-12956-00000	261 COLUMBIA ROAD 30 · MAGNOLIA	$2,137	$9,443	$7,306	withdrawn
01-03869-00000	719 LUCY CIR · MAGNOLIA	$1,379	$7,908	$6,529	pending
01-02428-00000	420 SMITH · MAGNOLIA	$2,485	$8,892	$6,407	pending
03-00427-00000

Spread is not profit.It compares the opening bid to the county's assessed value, which is not market value — Arkansas assesses real property at 20% of true, actual or market value (A.C.A. § 26-26-303(c)); § 26-26-304 fails a county whose ratio study falls outside 18–22% of full fair market value. Measured across 1,669 Arkansas parcels carrying both figures, assessed/market was exactly 0.2000 on every one. Open a parcel to run the full max-bid analysis, which accounts for the assessment ratio, surviving liens, quiet title, and holding costs.