A West Virginia Watch investigation found West Virginia Auditor Mark Hunt’s signature on tax deeds, a move outside of state law governing the sale of delinquent tax properties. Two state lawmakers are raising questions after the state auditor appears to have stepped in to fix a deed issue for a friend.
The West Virginia state auditor is the state’s bookkeeper and responsible for rooting out fraud, waste and graft within both state and local governments. And in recent years, the auditor has been placed in charge of handling the sale of properties with delinquent taxes. But several property transactions in Kanawha and Boone counties show Auditor Mark Hunt may have stepped outside the bounds of the law to sell properties to a Charleston-based attorney who has amassed a land empire throughout the state. And records show that same attorney also worked for the Auditor’s Office.
West Virginia Watch, responding to news tips, searched land databases and visited a county clerk’s office to look for deeds with Hunt’s signature. It found that Hunt, a former state senator elected to the office in 2024, personally signed nine tax deeds between March and June 2025. State law governing the sale of delinquent tax properties, meaning properties lost because the owner didn’t pay their taxes, states that the deputy land commissioner – not the auditor – is supposed to sign those deeds.
Hunt said when he came into the office in 2025, the land division that handles the deeds was in disarray, with files upon files of deeds in boxes. When Hunt’s office received a phone call from Robert L. Johns, a bankruptcy attorney, asking about deeds that had not yet been signed, the auditor said he became concerned that the office would be sued if the problem wasn’t fixed. A spokesperson for the prior Auditor, now Attorney General JB McCuskey, declined to comment about the state of the office.
“This is our fault,” Hunt said. “So seeing inequity, I made a decision that I believe the 500,000 people who voted for me gave me that to make a judgment call. I made a judgment call to issue the deeds. “There’s no nefarious things here,” Hunt added “Frankly, it’s something I forgot even happened until this tempest in a teapot has come up in the last couple weeks.”
But state code already addresses what should happen when the Auditor’s Office fails to provide the deed in a timely fashion. The person who bought it must take the deputy land commissioner to court. Records show two of the nine deeds were signed beyond a deadline mandated by state law, which Hunt said was due to the disorganized state of the office.
Sen. Ryan Weld, R-Brooke, is an attorney who deals with property rights and has lent a hand in rewriting how the state responds to owners who don’t pay their taxes. “It clearly states that deeds for people who purchase properties at these tax sales are issued and signed by the deputy commissioner,” Weld said. When a West Virginia landowner fails to pay property taxes, the county can seize the property for back taxes. Prior to changes in 2022, this was handled by the local sheriff. Now, the state auditor’s office handles the sale.
An outside party can bid to buy the deed, at which point they have to notify the current owner. If the current owner doesn’t pay up on their taxes or respond, the outside party can then buy the deed to the property outright. Hunt’s cursive signature on the documents and the issuance of deeds to someone employed in the auditor’s office is extremely troubling to Weld.
“On its face, it looks as if it’s intentional. And so you have to ask the question: Why?” Weld said. Hunt defended his signature on the deeds. “The deputy commissioner works under and through me and through my authority,” Hunt said. “It would be foolish to think that the commissioner’s boss couldn’t sign the
