11 Colo. App. 352 | Colo. Ct. App. | 1898
delivered the opinion of the court.
This controversy between the Colorado Fuel & Iron Company and the Pueblo Water Company was heard on an agreed statement of facts. The district court entered judgment for the water company. As we understand the statement the legal question on which the appellant relies must be adversely decided. The fuel company insists that the property which was assessed and taxed as personalty was personal property, and that the grantees had no right to pay these taxes and withhold the amount from the promised consideration. It is insisted the taxes were not a lien at the date of the conveyance, and that we must decide when, and to what extent, taxes on personal property become a perpetual lien, and reaching the con
On the 1st of May, 1890, the South Pueblo Water Company was the owner of a plant to supply water to portions of the city of Pueblo. It consisted of certain lands owned by the company on which the essential buildings were erected. Therein were certain machinery affixed to it, and some personal property used in and about it. Connected with it and extending therefrom were long lines of mains running along and under the soil of the streets, and constituting as a whole a water plant. The company did not prepare and return a statutory list or schedule, and the assessor listed or scheduled the property under his statutory authority. In this schedule the officer listed the real estate and improvements as realty, and valued it at $5,500. The balance of the property he listed at $35,000, putting it in the column devoted to personal or other property as contradistinguished from realty as the printed forms are arranged. The taxes ultimately levied by the board of county commissioners in the October following were $198.60 on the real estate and improvements, and $1,358.75 on the other property, making a total taxation of $1,559.35. The levy by the board was subsequent to the conveyance, which will now be stated. On the 20th of Au
The fuel company admitted on the argument and in the brief that there is no question respecting the $198.60, assessed against the realty, and that the grantee had a right to retain that sum and pay the taxes because of the grantor’s liability under the statute to pay all taxes accruing between the 1st of May and the 30th of November following. This concession is of substantial aid to us in the decision because if the fuel company can make no claim as to these taxes, it must follow they can make no claim as to the other, if we determine that the property was in fact realty. The whole argument is based on the assumption that because the bulk of the plant was scheduled or listed by the assessor under the head of personal property and the stipulation or agreed statement recited that for the purposes of the case the taxes are to be regarded as a verity, and legally due and payable according to the law relating to taxes, the status and character of the property for the purposes of taxation is conclusively fixed and determined. We concede that the taxes were a verity and that they were legally due and payable, but this admission does not necessarily determine the property to be personally as contradistinguished from realty. Under the terms of the stipulation the taxes were payable according to the law relating to taxes. But the further and necessary part of the
This discussion determines the entire appeal with the single exception of the f500 worth of property conceded to be personalty according to the terms of the statement. Respecting it, it seems to he admitted that the Pueblo Water Company were not entitled to withhold so much of the consideration as would liquidate the taxes on that amount of property. We
Modified and affirmed.