In the 1780s VA Land Office Treasury Warrants were usually issued by virtue of legal settlement or "improvement" made in a given place, and in some there were also Pre-Emption Warrants issued for land supposed to be (but not always) adjacent to the original tract.
The Warrants, actually writs authorizing the County Surveyor to lay out X amount of land for the Warrantee (and also called Warrants for Survey) were issued by the Commonwealth at this time, not by Counties.
These should not be confused with Bounty Land Warrants, which were issued by the Commonwealth in connection with Revoltutionary War service. They had been promised as inducements for enlistment and contingent upon a stated amount of service's being completed.
Some Land Office Treasury Warrants were also sold by the VA Land Office to land speculators in large acreages. These speculators then sold the land entitlement in smaller parcels, such as 200 acres. Persons who purchased a land entitlement under this type of LOTW could claim land nearly any location over which VA had jurisdiction, such as in present KY. For land claimed this way, you will see language in the patent/grant document giving the acreage of the survey and the authority for the grant being claim as assignee of so-and-so under LOTW number aaaaaa in the amount of XXXX acres.
Warrants issued strictly in right of settlement specified the County location and usually a nearby waterway and sometimes claiming or actual neighbors. They were good for claiming specific land that was settled upon.
The claimant (who may or may not be the original warrantee; sometimes the LOTW was sold as above, or just sold by the original settler, and they may have changed hands several times before actually given to the Surveyor) then gave the warrant to the Surveyor. After the Surveyor was paid for doing the work, he sent the Survey to the Land Office. After the VA Land Office was paid for the acreage, the Land Office issued the patent/grant for the actually-surveyed land.
Land issued in right of settlement was supposed to be permanently settled within a given time frame, which varied, usually 3 to 5 years.
Some Counties elsewhere still have original Warrants for Survey from this time period, but I have never seen a VA one. They were given to the Surveyor, whose records may or may not have survived.
You might find a statutory fee for the LOTWs in Hening's Statutes At Large.
Resale of lands confiscated from Proprietors and other Loyalists would not usually be via LOTW. Resale of other "vacant and unseated lands" that were escheated for lack of settlement or for not paying taxes also would be outright sale, not via LOTW. If seized for not paying County taxes, such lands would be seized and sold by the County, again a sale "in fee simple" (probably after an auction) rather than by LOTW.