About mappalachia

A map of West Virginia delinquent & non-entered land tax-sale parcels — so you can research properties before a county tax sale.

What this is

Each year, West Virginia county sheriffs publish lists of parcels offered at delinquent land sales (the "SB552 Web Handouts"). The data is public, but it's distributed as dozens of separate PDFs and is awkward to compare across counties. mappalachia.com consolidates the current list, plots each parcel on a map, and lets you filter, search, sort, and export.

The site is independent. It is not a government office, not affiliated with any sheriff or assessor, and it does not collect or process bids.

Where the data comes from

• Parcel records are extracted from each county's published SB552 Web Handout (PDF). The site shows the certificate number, ticket, district, map, parcel, assessed owner, legal description, and minimum bid.
• Parcel boundaries come from the WV GIS Technical Center statewide WV_Parcels service. We resolve each parcel once, server-side, and cache the polygon — so loading this page no longer pings WVGIS from every visitor's browser.
• Some parcels can't be matched to a polygon (numbering quirks, splits, recent changes, etc.). When that happens we show a small marker at the district center and label the listing as a centroid fallback.

How to use it

• Drill down by location. Pick a County, then a District, then an optional Map — each dropdown narrows the next.
• Search free text across owner name, legal description, certificate, ticket, district, map, or parcel number.
• Sort the list by minimum bid (high → low or low → high), by parcel acreage (large → small or small → large), or by owner.
• Filter by bid range with the $ min and $ max inputs.
• Filter by parcel size with the Min ac input (acreage comes from the WV GIS service; centroid-only parcels are excluded from this filter).
• List ↔ map are linked. Click a card to focus its parcel on the map; click a polygon (or centroid marker) to highlight its card.
• Reset any time with the Clear button.

Important caveats

The information here is for research and visualization only. It is not a legal survey, not a guarantee of title, and not legal or financial advice. Parcel records change frequently — before bidding, always verify the details directly with the County Assessor or Sheriff's office, walk the boundaries if possible, and review the underlying public record.

Bidding at a tax sale comes with material legal and financial risk. If you don't already understand how the West Virginia tax-sale process works, talk to a qualified attorney.

Attribution

Parcel boundaries © WV GIS Technical Center, used per their Terms of Use. Base map tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors and Esri (World Imagery).