We buy houses in Pike County, MS

State law sets the sale. After August 5, the Tax Collector lists unpaid land in a county paper for two weeks. The sale is held on the last Monday of August (Miss. Code 27-41-55).

A buyer at that sale does not take your house right away. You have two years from the sale day to redeem it (Miss. Code 27-45-3).

To redeem, you pay the Chancery Clerk:

• the taxes the land sold for
• the costs of the sale
• 5 percent damages
• interest of 1.5 percent a month

Before the two years end, the clerk must warn you. The notice goes out between 180 and 60 days before the deadline (Miss. Code 27-43-1).

The law calls for a sheriff or constable to deliver it, and the clerk also mails you a copy. Your name is printed in a county paper at least 45 days before the end (Miss. Code 27-43-3).

If your home loan uses a deed of trust, the land can be sold at a public auction. Mississippi law sets how that sale must be advertised.

The auction takes place in the county where the land sits, or where a borrower lives (Miss. Code 89-1-55).

First, the sale must run for three weeks in a row in a county paper. A notice must also be posted at the courthouse for that time. Both must name the original borrower.

The law says no such sale is valid without that notice, and a contract cannot waive it. A real estate attorney can check the dates in your case.

FEMA's flood study for Pike County names two main sources of flooding: the Bogue Chitto and the Tangipahoa River.

The largest known flood at the Bogue Chitto gauge on U.S. Highway 98 came in April 1983. FEMA rated it a bit rarer than a 100-year flood. The same storm sent the Tangipahoa about a foot over State Highway 575.

Parts of McComb have flooded after very heavy rain, and city streets have been badly damaged. One such storm hit on May 12, 1971.

If your land is near either river, the flood zone will matter to any buyer and any lender.

The Pike County Chancery Clerk records oil and gas leases along with deeds. The Mississippi Encyclopedia notes the county had two working oil wells in 1960.

Before you sell rural land, check the land records for a lease or for mineral rights someone kept.

For property tax, a mobile home is personal property unless the owner of the land under it acts. That owner can pull the wheels and axles, anchor the home, and declare it real property. Or the owner can retire the title (Miss. Code 27-53-15).

The Assessor then issues a certificate for $10 plus the filing fee, and it goes into the county land records.

Inherited land is often owned by several family members. If one asks a court to sell, the others get 45 days after the court's notice to choose to buy that share (Miss. Code 91-31-13).

The price is the court's value of the whole parcel times that person's share.