Title 22 — Public Property

(a) The Arkansas Department of Transportation shall determine those state highway rights-of-way that are wider than necessary for highway purposes and those borrow pits, dirt pits, and other highway-related lands owned by the state or the department that could be used to produce …

The Commissioner of State Lands shall take an oath that he or she will not, directly or indirectly, be engaged in the purchase of lands belonging to the state, to be sold by him or her during his or her continuance in office, and that he or she will not, directly or indirectly, e…

(a) It shall be the duty of the Commissioner of State Lands to give bond, with good and sufficient security to be approved by the Governor, in the sum of twenty thousand dollars ($20,000), for any moneys and other property belonging to the state which may be in or may come into h…

The Commissioner of State Lands shall be provided with an official seal for the use of his or her office, and every official paper or document issued by the Commissioner of State Lands shall have the seal of his or her office thereupon, or thereto attached. The seal shall authent…

The landed interests of this state shall be controlled by the Commissioner of State Lands, and he or she shall dispose of them as provided by law.

(a) The Commissioner of State Lands shall have charge and control of the disposition of all lands that have been forfeited to the state for nonpayment of taxes legally assessed thereon, and he or she shall dispose of the forfeited lands as provided by law. (b) The Auditor of Stat…

(a) The Commissioner of State Lands shall take possession and have charge of all the books, papers, evidences of title, plats, and maps of all internal improvement, seminary, saline, and swamp and overflowed lands. (b) The Commissioner of State Lands shall proceed to complete all…

(a) All deeds, abstracts, contracts, and other evidences of title to realty belonging to the State of Arkansas shall be filed in the office of the Commissioner of State Lands to be preserved by the Commissioner of State Lands as the other public records and files of his or her of…

(a) With respect to real property administered by the Arkansas Department of Transportation, an institution of higher education, the Arkansas Public Employees' Retirement System, and the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System:(1) The department, an institution of higher education, th…

(1) It is declared to be the policy of the State of Arkansas:(1) To provide for the development and conservation of the human and soil resources of the state;(2) To protect the lands owned by the state and to provide for their classification and best use in the interests of the f…

Insofar as any provision of this subchapter is inconsistent with the provisions of any other law, the provisions of this subchapter shall be controlling.

(1) In addition to other duties and powers conferred by law upon the Commissioner of State Lands, he or she shall:(1) Effectuate the policies and carry out the purposes declared in § 22-5-301, including:(A) Securing the cooperation and assistance of the United States and any of i…

(a) In cases where the location of lands claimed by the state appears to be doubtful or subject to controversy because of faulty descriptions or otherwise, the Commissioner of State Lands shall cause those lands to be surveyed in order to accurately locate the lands or shall requ…

A.C.A. § 22-5-305Current through all legislation of the 2025 Regular Session.Arkansas Code of 1987 Annotated Official EditionCopyright © 2026 by the State of Arkansas All rights reserved

(a) The Commissioner of State Lands may appoint appraisers to inspect and appraise state-owned lands for sale, transfer, or donation. (b) Each appraiser selected shall, by education or experience, be familiar with and know how to arrive at the value of lands, water rights, minera…

(a) State lands shall be classified as to whether they should be retained in public ownership or returned to private ownership through sale or donation, and the classification may be changed. (b) (1) The Commissioner of State Lands shall dispose of the lands and make deeds to the…

(a) It shall be the duty of the Attorney General, and any assistant attorney appointed by the Governor on a contingency fee not to exceed twenty-five percent (25%), to institute suit in the name of the state to recover any forgotten, lost, or other outstanding public interest or …

No tax title shall be valid or binding against the equitable or legal interest of this state in or to any real estate whatever. However, such tax titles shall be void so far as they shall conflict with the interest of the state and shall be treated and considered as null and void…

(a) All land which has formed or may form in the navigable waters of this state, and within the original boundaries of a former owner of land upon such waters, shall belong to and the title thereto shall vest in the former owner, his or her heirs or assigns, or in whoever may hav…

(a) The title to all lands which have formed or may form in the beds of nonnavigable lakes, or in abandoned river channels or beds, whether or not still navigable, which reformed lands or alluvia are above the ordinary high-water mark, shall vest in the riparian owners to the lan…

(a) The Commissioner of State Lands is empowered and authorized to execute deeds to lands described in § 22-5-404 to riparian owners upon application and the filing of proof of record ownership of adjacent lands and proof of proper survey of the lands, conveying all the right, ti…

(a) The State of Arkansas quitclaims, to the owners of adjacent lands, title to the streambed of the Mulberry River, excluding oil, gas, and other mineral rights underlying the stream, to the center of the stream. However, the state retains an easement to run with the land for fr…

(a) Any person claiming to be the owner of land in this state known as sixteenth section school land, whose claim is based on a regular, unbroken chain of title for a period of not less than twelve (12) years, and to whose claim there has not been an adverse claimant for a period…

(a) Where the claim of the State of Arkansas to any land conveyed to the Bank of the State of Arkansas under and by virtue of the Acts of the General Assembly of January 31, 1843, and February 3, 1843, providing for the liquidation of the assets of the bank, and the Acts of Janua…

Where land has escheated to the state under the provisions of § 1 of Act of January 11, 1843, p. 56, the title of the state may be conveyed to the present owner by a quitclaim deed executed by the Commissioner of State Lands upon the filing with him or her of an application for t…

(a) Where the claim of the State of Arkansas to any land sold to the state under decree of the Pulaski County Chancery Court and under decree of the circuit and chancery courts of the various counties of the state, known as overdue tax decrees, and under decrees of the Pulaski Co…

(a) A copy of the deed or other primary evidence of title to realty belonging to the State of Arkansas shall be filed in the office of the Commissioner of State Lands and shall be preserved by the Commissioner of State Lands as the other public records and files of his or her off…

(a) The Arkansas Forestry Commission is authorized and empowered to acquire and hold in the name of the State of Arkansas title to lands which the commission determines, because of location, topographical, geological, and physical characteristics, are chiefly valuable for the pro…

(a) Lands may be acquired by gift, devise, purchase, or exchange from any county, municipality, state or federal agency or department, person, firm, corporation, or association. (b) The Arkansas Forestry Commission shall not purchase or acquire any lands until the purchase price …

The Arkansas Forestry Commission may exchange tracts of land acquired under the provisions of this subchapter for suitable land of equal value in furtherance of the administration and consolidation of these holdings and may sell and convey, upon terms requiring proper conservatio…

(a) Any lands acquired by the Commissioner of State Lands in any county through tax sale, which are deemed by the Arkansas Forestry Commission to be suitable for forest purposes, may be conveyed to the state as forestlands by the proper officers of the county without reimbursemen…

Upon the written request of the Arkansas Forestry Commission, the Attorney General shall institute and prosecute to final decree all requisite suits to quiet the title of the state in and to lands acquired; and, in the prosecution of the suits, the state shall be exempted from th…

(a) The purchase price of lands acquired shall be paid at the time of acquisition from the State Forestry Fund, and the acquisition shall not impose any liability upon the general credit or taxing power of the state. (b) All lands acquired under the provisions of this subchapter …

(a) The Arkansas Forestry Commission is authorized and directed to fully cooperate with the departments, officers, and agencies of the United States Government to meet the requirements of the rules, regulations, and acts of the United States Congress relating to the objectives of…

(a) It shall be the duty of the State Forester, in accordance with the provisions of this subchapter, the rules promulgated by the Arkansas Forestry Commission, and approved methods of forestry, to manage, control, protect, develop, utilize, and handle the lands in the state fore…

The Arkansas Forestry Commission is authorized and directed to approve, promulgate, and publish rules, and amendments or modifications thereof, reasonably required in directing and controlling the proper execution of the duties and attaining the objectives of this subchapter. The…

The Arkansas Forestry Commission shall cause a record of all its proceedings relating to state forests, including the date of acquisition, description, source of title, purchase price, amounts expended in the development of each tract, and the forest to which allotted, to be kept…

(a) For the purpose of protecting the timber and lands of the state against trespass and to obtain reliable information upon which to predicate the proceedings provided for in this subchapter, the Attorney General shall have the authority to employ agents to make the necessary in…

Whenever the Attorney General shall receive or obtain information that anyone is cutting timber upon state lands, it shall be the duty of the Attorney General to institute suit to recover the value of the timber that has been cut and to restrain further trespass upon the land.

Whenever the Attorney General shall have information that anyone is in possession of land that has been forfeited to the state and the period of redemption has expired, he or she shall institute suit to eject the person from the land and to recover the rental value of the land du…

(a) Whenever the Attorney General shall receive information that any donee of state land has violated or failed to comply with any of the laws relating to the donation of state lands, the Attorney General shall file a complaint with the Commissioner of State Lands praying for the…

(a) In all suits pending in any courts of this state where the state is a party of record claiming title to, or any interest in, any real estate, the title to which is in controversy in the suit, neither the party claiming adversely to the state in the suit nor any other person, …

All amounts recovered for the state shall be paid to the Treasurer of State to be credited to the Constitutional Officers Fund and State Central Services Fund for the support of the office of the Commissioner of State Lands, and each agent's per diem and expenses shall be paid fr…

(a) The field notes, transcripts, documents, maps, plats, records, and other papers kept in the office of the Commissioner of State Lands are declared to be public records. (b) Under the authority and direction of the Director of the Bureau of Land Management, any deputy surveyor…

(a) All certified transcripts and copies of any of the public records in the office of the Commissioner of State Lands, properly certified by the Commissioner of State Lands, shall be entitled to be recorded in all deed records and shall be received in evidence in all courts of t…

(a) (1) The county court of each county is authorized to ascertain at what price the field notes of survey of the lands in the county, together with township maps thereof, can be obtained. After the court shall have obtained a knowledge of the amount of expenses necessary to proc…

(a) The clerk of each county court shall issue, when called by any person, a copy of the field notes and maps of the county and is authorized to charge fifty cents (50¢) for each copy. (b) No copy shall contain more than three hundred twenty (320) acres without an additional char…

The office of the Commissioner of State Lands shall be subject to the Arkansas Administrative Procedure Act, § 25-15-201 et seq.

(a) It is the purpose and intent of this section and §§ 22-5-802 — 22-5-813 to charge the Commissioner of State Lands with the authority and responsibility for considering applications for and granting leases and permits for the taking of sand, gravel, oil, natural gas, casinghea…

(a) The provisions of this section and §§ 22-5-801 and 22-5-803 — 22-5-813 shall not be applicable to the severance, sale, or other disposition of sand, gravel, timber or logs, or minerals salvaged, severed, or removed by a state agency from lands held in the name of or managed b…