A total of 360 parcels of tax forfeited land in Vicksburg valued at more than $758,000 is up for sale by the Mississippi Secretary of State’s office.

Tax forfeited properties are land initially up for sale at county tax sales and never sold or reclaimed by the original owner. After the property lies unclaimed for three years, it is stricken from the tax rolls and turned over to the state, where it goes into the Secretary of State’s public lands inventory.

“We’re doing this all over the state. We have sold over 2,000 parcels in the last year at auction around the state of Mississippi and it’s generated over $1 million back for school districts and cities,” Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said.

The sale is the first for the area since 2015.

Most of the available parcels for this sale are concentrated along Ford Road, Grammar Street, Locust Street, Main Street, Marcus Street, Martin Luther King Boulevard, Pearl Street, Sky Farm Road, and Williams Street.

“We’re returning to Vicksburg in conjunction with Mayor Flaggs efforts,” Hosemann said. “He was the first one to get the (Mississippi) Home Corp. to give him blight relief money to take down blighted properties. “Mayor Flaggs set the standard for the state on that, and I want to support those efforts by putting these 360 properties up. Some of those will be blighted. I hope that they will be purchased and torn down or rehabilitated to make my hometown a better place to live.

“I applaud Mayor Flaggs’ efforts on this and I want to work with him,” he said.

Flaggs said people have contacted him asking when the Secretary of State will have another auction in the area.

“We want to commend Secretary of State Hosemann and his staff for bringing it,” he said.

Bids for the property may be submitted through the Secretary of State’s online auction portal until 11:59 p.m. June 12.  The bidder must register online to place a bid, and the property details such as parcel location on an auction map.

Other information, such as auction dates, bid notices, and market values of property are also available online. 

Successful bidders will be notified by e-mail as soon as possible once bids are placed, and payment of the bid amount must be paid within 5 to 7 days of notification.

City attorney Nancy Thomas said the city’s website will have a link to the Secretary of State’s website.

Money generated from the sale will go to the city and the Warren County School District.