Stieff v. Hartwell
Stieff v. Hartwell
Opinion of the Court
The appellant (plaintiff below) brought an action of ejectment against the appellee (defendant below) to recover a lot in the city of Orlando. The defendant plead hot guilty. The case, by consent of parties, was submitted to the court without a jury, and judgment was rendered for defendant. The plaintiff relied upon a tax deed executed September 11th, 1890, in pursuance of a sale of the premises on September 4th, 1889, for the State and county taxes due thereon for the year 1888. The defendant in support of his plea offered a master’s deed, of a date subsequent.to the tax deed of the plaintiff made upon a foreclosure sale of the property in dispute, and also a tax deed to the premises
Several objections were urged against the validity of the plaintiff’s tax deed, when it was offered in evidence at the trial. These objections were overruled, and the deed admitted in evidence. We find that none of these objections were valid, and the objections being decided in favor of the appellant, we would not consider them further, except that to give our opinion upon the matters involved in them may be useful to the parties in a future trial, as for reasons hereinafter stated the judgment must be reversed and a new trial awarded.
The objections in question, as shown by the record, were three in number and as follows: 1st. Because the said deed conveyed eight other tracts of land in the same instrument, not proven to be lands of this defendant, while the law contemplates a separate deed for each tract sold separately of different owners. 2nd. Because the assessment of said lands so sold was not completed within the year for which the levy was made, viz: the year 1888, but the assessment was not completed until February 6th, A. D. 1889. 3rd. Because the record of the advertisement of the said tax sale required by law to be made within ten days after the sale was never so made. The first objection does not allege any sale in gross, or for a lumping sum, of several tracts of land. The statute under which the deed was made (sec. 57, Chap. 3681, acts of 1887) provides that “on the presentation of such certificate or certificates of sale to the clerk of the Circuit Court, * * * he shall execute to the purchaser, or his heirs or assigns, a deed to the land therein described,” etc. In the same section is the form of deed prescribed by law, and which, by being incorporated into the
The second objection was not well taken. An assessment is"not invalid because not completed during the
The third objection was, that the record of the advertisement of the tax sale required by law to be made within ten days after the sale was never so made. Under this objection it was admitted by both parties that the record was made thirteen days before the sale. The defendant contended that it should have been made after the sale, but within ten days afterward. The provisions of the statute under consideration relative to recording the advertisement are in the forty-seventh section of Chapter 3681. In the first part of the section is a provision that “a copy of the advertisement shall be recorded in the county clerk’s office within ten days after said sale.” Then, after provisions for other matters, including the form of the advertisement, occurs the following: “The publishers, proprietors or foreman of any newspaper publishing any such notice, shall forward a copy of each number of his paper containing such notice to the tax collector .•and clerk of the Circuit Court, and Comptroller, by mail, and shall make an affidavit setting forth a copy
When the defendant offered his city tax deed in evidence numerous objections were made by plaintiff to its admissibility, which were overruled and the deed wa.s admitted. An examination of the deed shows it has a fatal defect, which should have been, but was not, made a ground of objection in the court below. Still, as it is a vital defect in the deed, necessarily invalidating it, it is useless to consider the objections made by plaintiff below, which consisted mainly of alleged irregularities in the exercise of the taxing power by the city. The defect alluded to is, that the State, instead of the city, is made the grantor in this deed. The State had no title under the city tax sale. The property had been sold to the city. In such a case the city, and not the State, should have been the grantor. Such is the effect of the fifty-eighth section of the act, supra, which provides that “the clerk of the Circuit Court, shall make the deed for all lands sold for the nonpayment of taxes by any city or town, and not redeemed substantially in the same form’ ’ as deeds for land sold for State and county taxes; and of the fifty-
From what has been said it follows that the plaintiff having exhibited prima facie evidence of title, and the defendant having exhibited no title that could countervail that of the plaintiff, a judgment should not have-been rendered for the defendant.
The judgment of the Circuit Court is reversed and a new trial ordered.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- George W. Stieff v. S. A. Hartwell
- Cited By
- 9 cases
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- Syllabus
- 1. Under the statute of 1887 (section 57 (of Chapter 3681, Laws of Florida) it is permissible for the clerk of the Circuit Court to include in one tax deed different pieces or parcels of land which belonged to different owners and are included in different certificates, where all of such pieces or parcels are bought at the same tax sale by the same purchaser, and the same were singly and separately sold, and not sold for a gross or lumping-sum, and the deed describes each tract separately, and states the price for which each was sold. 2. A tax assessment is not invalid because not completed during the year for which it was made. As a general rule a provision in a statute naming the time when an act is to be done in the assessment and collection of taxes is a direction, and not a limitation. 3. Where no objection is made to the form of the warrant under which a sale for taxes is made, the prima facie presumption of regularity which the statute attaches to the deed sufficiently indicates the regularity of such warrants in all respects. • 4. A tax deed when offered in evidence was objected to upon the ground that the advertisement of the tax sale upon which the deed was made was not recorded within ten days after the sale as required by law. It was admitted by the parties that such recoid was made thirteen days before the sale, but the record of the case here does not show whether such record of the advertisement was made before or after all the insertions of the same in the newspaper, as required by law: Held, That the record of such advertisement might be made before the sale, but not until after the insertion of the same in the newspaper the number of times required by the statute. Construing the phrase, “within ten days after said sale,” as a limitation, a record made thirteen days before the sale was within the limitation. 5. The State acquires no title by the sale of peal estate to a city for city taxes; and a deed, in pursuance of such a sale, in which the State is the grantor is inoperative to convey any title to the grantee.