69 Iowa 458 | Iowa | 1886
The only evidence of the service of notice to redeem, on file in the treasurer’s office where the tax deed was executed, was the affidavit of J. J. Bell, in which he swore that he was t'he attorney of James H. Easton, the holder of the certificate of purchase, and that a notice, a copy of which was attached to the affidavit, had been published three times in a newspaper published in the county, after the expiration of two years and nine months from the date of the sale. This notice was directed to Susan J. Pitts and O. B. Ayers. The land was not taxed to either of these persons for the year in which the deed was executed, nor was either of them in possession of it when the notice was served. It was uncultivated prairie land, of which no person was in actual possession.
The statute requires that the notice be served upon the person in possession, and upon the one in whose name it is taxed. Code, § 894. As the land was not taxed in the name of the persons named in the notice, and they were not in possession, no notice was required to be served on them; and it is clear that the service of the notice on them did not answer the requirements of the statute, if the circumstances were such as that notice was required to be served on some other person. Appellant claims that the laud was in fact taxed in the name of H. II. Medallow, and that the notice should have been served on him. The assessment in force at the time was introduced in evidence. The page of the book on which the assessment of the property in question is shown contains the
We are very clearly of the opinion .that each tract described on the page should be treated as having been assessed separately, and that the assessment to Medallow includes only the land covered by the description opposite to which his name is written. That it was the intention of the assessor to assess that one tract only in his name is apparent, we think, from what is shown upon the page. The entries with reference to that description constitute in themselves a complete assessment, and there is nothing at all upon the face of the b<?ok which in any manner indicates an intention to assess any of the other tracts of land in Medallow’s name. The
Affirmed.