(a) Each tract or lot certified to the deputy commissioner pursuant to the preceding section shall be sold by the deputy commissioner at public auction at the courthouse of the county to the highest bidder between the hours of nine in the morning and four in the afternoon on any business working day within one hundred twenty days after the Auditor has certified the lands to the deputy commissioner as required by the preceding section. The payment for any tract or lot purchased at a sale shall be made by check or money order payable to the sheriff of the county and delivered before the close of business on the day of sale. No part or interest in any tract or lot subject to such sale, or any part thereof of interest therein, that is less than the entirety of such unredeemed tract, lot or interest, as the same is described and constituted as a unit or entity in said list, shall be offered for sale or sold at such sale. If the sale shall not be completed on the first day of the sale, it shall be continued from day to day between the same hours until all the land shall have been offered for sale.

(b) A private, nonprofit, charitable corporation, incorporated in this state, which has been certified as a nonprofit corporation pursuant to the provisions of Section 501(c)(3) of the federal Internal Revenue Code, as amended, which has as its principal purpose the construction of housing or other public facilities and which notifies the deputy commissioner of an intention to bid and subsequently submits a bid that is not more than five percent lower than the highest bid submitted by any person or organization which is not a private, nonprofit, charitable corporation as defined in this subsection, shall be sold the property offered for sale by the deputy commissioner pursuant to the provisions of this section at the public auction as opposed to the highest bidder.

The nonprofit corporation referred to in this subsection does not include a business organized for profit, a labor union, a partisan political organization or an organization engaged in religious activities and it does not include any other group which does not have as its principal purpose the construction of housing or public facilities.