North Dakota Const. art. 9, § 6 — North Dakota Constitution / Article 9 / Section 6
No original grant school or institutional land shall be sold for less than the fair
Status: in_force

Section 6. No original grant school or institutional land shall be sold for less than the fair 
market value thereof, and in no case for less than ten dollars ($10.00) per acre, provided that 
when lands have been sold on contract and the contract has been canceled, such lands may 
be resold without reappraisement by the board of appraisal. The purchaser shall pay twenty 
(20) percent of the purchase price at the time the contract is executed; thereafter annual 
payments shall be made of not less than six (6) percent of the original purchase price. An 
amount equal to not less than three (3) percent per annum of the unpaid principal shall be 
credited to interest and the balance shall be applied as payment on principal as credit on 
purchase price. The purchaser may pay all or any installment or installments not yet due to any 
interest paying date. If the purchaser so desires, he may pay the entire balance due on his 
contract with interest to date of payment at any time and he will then be entitled to proper 
conveyance.
All sales shall be held at the county seat of the county in which the land to be sold is 
situated, and shall be at public auction and to the highest bidder, and notice of such sale shall 
be published once each week for a period of three weeks prior to the day of sale in a legal 
newspaper published nearest the land and in the newspaper designated for the publication of 
the official proceedings and legal notices within the county in which said land is situated.
No grant or patent for such lands shall issue until payment is made for the same; provided 
that the land contracted to be sold by the state shall be subject to taxation from the date of the 
contract. In case the taxes assessed against any of said lands for any year remain unpaid until 
the first Monday in October of the following year, the contract of sale for such land shall, if the 
board of university and school lands so determine, by it, be declared null and void. No contract 
of  sale heretofore made under the  provisions of this section  of the constitution as then 
providing shall be affected by this amendment, except prepayment of principal may be made 
as herein provided.
Any of said lands that may be required for townsite purposes, schoolhouse sites, church 
sites, cemetery sites, sites for other educational or charitable institutions, public parks, airplane 
landing fields, fairgrounds, public highways, railroad right of way, or other railroad uses and 
purposes, reservoirs for the storage of water for irrigation, irrigation canals, and ditches, 
drainage ditches, or for any of the purposes for which private lands may be taken under the 
right of eminent domain under the constitution and laws of this state, may be sold under the 
provisions of this article, and shall be paid for in full at the time of sale, or at any time thereafter 
as herein provided. Any of said lands and any other lands controlled by the board of university 
and school lands, including state coal mineral interests, may, with the approval of said board, 
be exchanged for lands and coal mineral interests of the United States, the state of North 
Dakota or any county or municipality thereof as the legislature may provide, and the lands so 
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acquired shall be subject to the trust to which the lands exchanged therefor were subject, and 
the state shall reserve all mineral and water power rights in land so transferred, except coal 
mineral interests approved for exchange by the board of university and school lands under this 
section.
When any of said lands have been heretofore or may be hereafter sold on contract, and 
the purchaser or his heirs or assigns is unable to pay in full for the land purchased within 
twenty years after the date of purchase and such contract is in default and subject to being 
declared null and void as by law provided, the board of university and school lands may, after 
declaring such contract null and void, resell the land described in such contract to such 
purchaser, his heirs or assigns, for the amount of the unpaid principal, together with interest 
thereon reckoned to the date of such resale at the rate of not less than three (3%) percent, but 
in no case shall the resale price be more than the original sale price; such contract of resale 
shall be upon the terms herein provided, provided this section shall be deemed self-executing 
insofar as the provisions for resale herein made are concerned.