40 S.E. 947 | S.C. | 1902
February 25, 1902. The opinion of the Court was delivered by *504
Though there are numerous exceptions in this case, they are all dependent upon the question whether a defaulting taxpayer whose land was sold by the sheriff for the payment of taxes can maintain an action for the recovery of the land, or for the recovery of the possession thereof, unless it is brought within two years from the date of sale, although two years have not elapsed since the purchaser was put in possession of the land by the sheriff, who had failed to take exclusive possession when he levied upon the land. Section 351 of the Revised Statutes is as follows: "In all cases of sale, the sheriff's deed of conveyance, whether executed to a private person, a corporation or the sinking fund commission, shall be held and taken as prima facie evidence of a good title in the holder, and that all proceedings have been regular and all requirements of the law have been duly complied with. No action for the recovery of land sold by the sheriff under the provisions of this article or for the recovery of the possession thereof shall be maintained unless brought within two years from the date of said sale." In commenting on this section, Mr. Chief Justice McIver, speaking for the Court, uses the following language in State v. Morrison,
There are additional reasons why the doctrine just stated should prevail. When the statute provided that no action should be maintained unless brought within two years from the date of sale, it contemplated that the sheriff would at once put the purchaser in possession of the land, in which case the taxpayer's cause of action would accrue immediately. The statute did not intend to bar the taxpayer's right until he had two years within which he could bring his action. He could not bring his action until there was a person on the land withholding possession from him. As said by the Court in Suber v. Chandler,
The provisions of section 352 of the Revised Statutes cannot be invoked for the purpose of showing waiver of the taxpayer's rights, and his admissions that the sheriff had taken and was in the exclusive possession of the land at the time of sale, as required by section 349 of the Revised Statutes, for the reason that section 352 is only applicable when the taxpayer is seeking the relief afforded by that section. Bull v. Kirk,
It is the judgment of this Court, that the judgment of the Circuit Court be affirmed. *506