Oglethorpe County, GA tax sales

County offices

County notes

• •Tax Commissioner is Dawn Johnson Scarborough. Office hours are Monday to Thursday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Friday 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Email is taxcommissioner@oglethorpecountyga.gov.
• •The two county pages give slightly different sale-venue and advertising wording. The Tax Sales page says sales are held at the Oglethorpe County Courthouse, 111 W Main St., Lexington, and advertised in the Wednesday edition of the Oglethorpe Echo. The Delinquent Taxes page says "an auction of the property is conducted in front of the Oglethorpe County Justice Center on the first Tuesday of the month" and is advertised "in the Oglethorpe Echo for four consecutive Fridays prior to the sale". Confirm the exact location and ad day with the office before a sale.
• •Sales are conditional, not calendared: "If a tax sale is scheduled, an auction of the property is conducted in front of the Oglethorpe County Justice Center on the first Tuesday of the month."
• •No online auction platform is used and none is referenced anywhere on the Tax Commissioner's pages, so no platform URL is reported.
• •The Tax Sales page references a "Tax Sale Booklet on this website", but no link to that booklet appears on the Tax Sales, Property Tax, Delinquent Taxes, or Tax Commissioner pages. Request it from the office.
• •Property records for due diligence are on qPublic (Schneider) at the link from the county Property Tax page; tax payments run through OglethorpeCountyPay.com (Government Window), which returned HTTP 403 to automated fetch and was not verified.
• •The county's Delinquent Taxes page points investors to O.C.G.A. Title 48 Chapter 3 (Tax Executions) and Chapter 4 (Tax Sales), matching the state-level classification.
• •Excess funds claim form PDF is linked from the Excess Funds page at https://www.oglethorpecountyga.gov/_files/ugd/2dc561_5ec953650b76476491f01007fe70ed99.pdf (link seen on the page, PDF contents not opened).
• •Fetch note: oglethorpecountyga.gov is a Wix site whose URL slugs do not match page titles. The Tax Sales page lives at /copy-of-tc-mt-property-tax-returns and the Delinquent Taxes page at /copy-of-tc-pt-tax-bills-payments. All quoted text was read from the server-rendered HTML of those exact URLs.

Georgia rules

Redemption

The right to redeem runs for 12 months from the date of the sale and does not end there. It continues after the year until the tax deed purchaser forecloses it by serving and publishing the statutory barment notice, which cannot be started until 12 months have passed. The purchaser delivers the notice to the sheriff at least 45 days before the redemption deadline named in it, and publishes it once a week for four consecutive weeks in the six months immediately before that deadline. Redemption puts title back in the defendant in fi. fa. subject to the liens that existed at the sale, and the purchaser must execute and record a quitclaim deed. Title under a tax deed recorded on or after July 1, 1996 ripens by prescription four years after recording. Judicial in rem foreclosures under Article 5 run on a different clock: the owner has 60 days after the sale to redeem by paying the minimum bid price into the superior court.O.C.G.A. 48-4-40, who may redeem and when (2024 Code of Georgia)O.C.G.A. 48-4-40Verified Jul 30, 2026

Deed deposit

Georgia sets no statewide percentage deposit. A purchaser at a judicial sale may tender cash or a cashier's or certified check drawn for the purchase price and issued or certified by a federally insured financial institution. Counties publish their own payment terms, and many require payment in full at the close of the sale, so confirm the terms with the tax commissioner before bidding.O.C.G.A. 48-4-1, Procedures for sales under tax levies and executions (2024 Code of Georgia)O.C.G.A. 48-4-1Verified Jul 30, 2026

Surplus proceeds

Excess funds left after taxes, costs, and the expenses of the sale belong to the former owner and to recorded lienholders in order of priority. The officer who sold the property must mail notice of the excess funds by first-class mail within 30 days to the record owner at the time of the sale, to the holder of each security deed, and to every other party with a recorded equity interest or claim, and may file an interpleader action in superior court. Funds still unclaimed five years after the sale are paid over to the Georgia Department of Revenue, after which only a court order from an interpleader action releases them.O.C.G.A. 48-4-5, Payment of excess (2024 Code of Georgia)O.C.G.A. 48-4-5Verified Jul 30, 2026

Governing statute

O.C.G.A. Title 48, Chapter 4Official Code of Georgia Annotated, public access published for the Georgia General Assembly by the Georgia Code Revision CommissionO.C.G.A. Title 48, Chapter 4Verified Jul 25, 2026

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.

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