We buy houses in Jones County, MS

After August 5 each year, the tax collector advertises unpaid land for the tax sale. The sale is held on the last Monday of August (Miss. Code 27-41-55).

Jones has two court districts, so land is advertised and sold in the district where it sits, at that district's courthouse door. The ad runs for two weeks in a county newspaper.

The law also lets the collector choose to hold a sale of county lands on the first Monday of April.

A tax sale starts a clock. It does not end your ownership right away. You can buy the land back for two years after the sale (Miss. Code 27-45-3).

To do that, you pay the Chancery Clerk:

• the taxes
• costs
• 5 percent damages
• interest of 1.5 percent a month

Mississippi assesses a single family home the owner lives in at 10 percent of true value. Other real property is assessed at 15 percent. Then the local tax rate applies.

Taxes are due on or before February 1 for property assessed the year before. To appeal your assessment, you normally must file by the first Monday in August before the taxes come due.

In September 2025 the Jones County Board of Supervisors adopted its fiscal 2026 budget with a county rate cut of 6.15 mills, WDAM reported. The county's chief financial officer tied the cut mostly to a paid off school bond.

The same report put the county's current revenue at a little more than $53 million. Property tax brought in $31 million of it.

Homestead applications go to the Tax Assessor between January 1 and April 1. Your deed must be filed with the Chancery Clerk before January 7.

Owners under 65 who do not qualify as disabled get a credit of up to $300. Owners 65 or older, or totally disabled, pay no tax on the first $7,500 of assessed value.

FEMA's countywide flood study names three main flood sources in the county:

• the Bogue Homo
• the Leaf River
• Tallahala Creek, behind the worst damage

Laurel's record flood came on April 15, 1974. Ellisville's most damaging recent flood followed 11.39 inches of rain on December 25 and 26, 1973.

The Mississippi State Department of Health will inspect an existing septic system if you ask. You use its Form 776, which in its 2017 version carried a $125 fee.

The form asks whether the house is on public water or a private well. It also asks whether someone lives there now.

In Mississippi, a manufactured home counts as personal property by default (Miss. Code 27-53-15). The owner of the land under it can change that in one of two ways:

• remove the wheels and axles, anchor the home and declare it real property
• retire the title

The assessor then files a certificate in the county land records. The fee is $10 plus the filing fee.

Inherited land is often owned by several relatives together. Any one of them can ask a court to force a sale.

Since July 1, 2020, Mississippi's Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act gives the other owners a way out. They can buy out whoever asked for the sale, at the value the court sets. They must choose to do it within 45 days of the court's notice (Miss. Code 91-31-13).

The price for each share is the court's value of the whole parcel times that owner's fraction.

Oil was found in the area in the 1940s. By the end of 1944 Jones County led Mississippi in oil production.

If your family's land has that history, a real estate attorney can check the Chancery Clerk's land records for any mineral rights held back before you sign.