(a) Every piece of real property offered at public auction for the non-payment of taxes and public sewer system user fees and not sold for want of bids sufficient to cover all taxes and public sewer system user fees, penalties and costs thereon may be purchased by the Lieutenant Governor for and in the name of the Government of the United States Virgin Islands at any sale after the first offering of such property at public auction. The Lieutenant Governor shall make a public bid for such property in the amount of said taxes and public sewer system user fees, penalties and costs, and if no higher bids be offered he shall purchase the same in the name of the Government of the United States Virgin Islands in the amount of said taxes and public sewer system user fees, penalties and costs. Such purchase shall be paid for by the Lieutenant Governor with any available funds in the General Fund of the Treasury of the Virgin Islands, not otherwise appropriated, which funds are hereby appropriated for this purpose. If the right of redemption hereinafter provided for is not exercised within the time prescribed, certificate of purchase, when recorded in the office of the Recorder of Deeds shall vest the title to said property absolutely in the Government of the United States Virgin Islands free from all mortgages, liens or other encumbrances. Said certificate shall be prima facie evidence of the facts therein recorded in any controversy, proceeding or action involving or concerning the rights of the purchaser, his heirs or assigns, to the property thereby conveyed. No fee shall be charged by the Recorder for recording such certificate nor for issuing a copy thereof.
(b) The public notice of tax sale pursuant to section 2546 of Title 33, chapter 89, Virgin Islands Code, which shall include a statement that suits to contest the validity of the certificate of purchase, must be filed within ninety (90) days of recordation of such certificate in the Office of the Recorder of Deeds. Upon the expiration of the ninety (90) day period from the date of recordation of the certificate of purchase, the validity of such certificate and any other agreements thereto and all proceedings in connection therewith shall be conclusively presumed to have been legally taken and no court shall have the authority to inquire into such matters. Suits to contest the validity of any deed conveyed pursuant to this section may not be instituted and are forever barred if not filed within ninety (90) days of recordation of the certificate of purchase in the Office of the Recorder of Deeds.
(c) Payments received for delinquent taxes shall be applied first to the penalties, accrued interest, and real property tax and public sewer system fees, in that order related to the longest standing delinquency, and then to the penalties, accrued interest, and real property tax, in that order due on the next longest standing delinquency, and subsequent delinquencies.