267 Mass. 17 | Mass. | 1929
This is a petition in the Land Court to register the title to several lots of land in the city of Boston, including lot No. 100 West Selden Street, lot No. 2 Crossman Street, and lot No. 53 Delhi Street. The city of Boston holds numerous tax titles on all these lots, and objects to the confirmation of so much of the master’s report as holds that the above-mentioned tax deeds on the lots in question were invalid because the city of Boston already had tax deeds upon the said lots.
The city of Boston excepted to the refusal of the court to rule (1) "That no tax deed held by the city of Boston in the above entitled cause is invalid because the city of Boston was the holder of a prior tax title upon the same property”; (2) "That if the city of Boston sold the property for unpaid taxes or assessments and on account of some noncompliance with the statute the said deeds were invalid and later the city of Boston sold the same premises again for unpaid taxes or assessments and conformed to the terms of the statute in the later sale, the later deeds are valid deeds”; (3) "That the city of Boston had the right to sell the property for unpaid annual taxes and for unpaid assessments and to give separate deeds for the unpaid annual taxes and for the unpaid assessments”; (4) "That a tax deed for an assessment is different in its nature than a tax deed for an annual tax in that an assessment follows and is a lien upon the land upon which it is assessed and the annual tax is against the person who owns the land when the assessment for the annual tax is made”; and (5) “That G. L. c. 60, § 61, does not by its terms prevent a city from selling property for taxes or assessments and the giving of a tax deed for the same property upon which it already is the holder of a tax title.”
St. 1919, c. 263, entitled “An Act relative to the liens of cities and towns on real estate taken for non-payment of taxes” (now G. L. c. 60, § 61), reads: “Whenever a city or
The purpose of the statute is twofold, (1) to relieve the city or town from redeeming land which it has purchased for payment of taxes from the paramount lien which arises from taxes assessed after those for the collection of which the sale was made; and (2), to save to the taxpayer and owner the costs and expenses which are an incident of any sale for subsequent taxes. When the city or town purchases land for the nonpayment of taxes under the quoted statute it manifestly is unnecessary for the city or town to take or sell the land purchased for nonpayment of subsequent taxes, costs and interest, for the reason that on a petition of the city or town in the Land Court for foreclosure of rights of redemption, G. L. c. 60, §§ 64 et seq., the petition will be granted unless the person entitled to redeem “shall . . . within a time fixed by the court” pay to the petitioner “an amount sufficient to cover the original sum, costs, interest at the rate of eight per cent per annum, and all subsequent taxes, costs and interest to which the petitioner may be entitled under section sixty-one or sixty-two, together with the costs of the proceeding and such counsel fee as the court deems reasonable.” G. L. c. 60, § 68..
The second exception presents the question of the applicability of § 61 of G. L. c. 60 when for any reason the purchase by the city or town for payment of taxes and the deed received are invalid. Section 45 of that statute, after providing what statements the Collector’s deed shall contain, continues: “Such deed shall not be valid unless recorded . . . and if so recorded it shall be prima facie evidence of all facts essential to the validity of the title thereby conveyed .' . . .” Section 64 provides that “The title conveyed by a tax collector’s deed or by a taking of land for taxes shall be absolute after foreclosure of the right of redemption by decree of the Land Court.” Section 68 provides for the appearance in the Land Court of any one claiming an interest in the title,
G. L. c. 60, § 78, reads: “Before foreclosure or redemption, taxes on land taken or purchased by a town shall be assessed to the person to whom they would be assessed if the land had not been so taken or purchased. In case of a sale under the following section, such taxes shall be deducted from the proceeds thereof, before any surplus is disposed of as therein provided. In case of foreclosure, any such taxes of which the lien has. not expired shall be credited to the collector as if collected by him.”
The statutory procedure in case of a supposedly defective tax title confers on a city or town the means whereby it may. secure a valid title to the estate described in the tax deed held by it. The receipt of the collector’s deed and the allowance to him of the amount of the tax, interest and charges on the estate described in the deed, constitute a purchase of the estate sold for taxes within the meaning of § 61, and the deed received is prima fade valid until its invalidity is established in the Land Court at a hearing to foreclose the right of re-, demption under G. L. c. 60, §§68 and 70. The second exception is overruled.
The third and fourth exceptions are essentially the same, and relate to the power of a city or town to sell for the annual taxes and for various special assessments of the same year on the same property, by separate sale, and to give separate deeds to the purchaser.
G. L. c. 80, § 4, the betterments statute, reads: “Within a reasonable time after making the assessment the board shall commit the list of assessments upon land in each town with their warrant to the collector of taxes.thereof, and he shall
The provision that “All assessments apportioned under section thirteen QG. L. c. 80, § 13] and all other assessments on real estate constituting a lien thereon and remaining unpaid on April first in any year, shall be placed on the annual tax bill for such real estate” evidently was enacted to permit the collection of the entire amount as one item, whether by payment or sale, one summons, one advertisement, one sale, one deed, and one bill of costs. The master pertinently notes that lot 2 was sold for an annual tax assessed for the year 1920, and that on the same day the lot was sold by separate sales for assessments for sewer, street construction and gypsy moth suppression, all for the year 1920; that the sum of the annual tax and the above named assessments was $28.12; that the costs charged against this one lot for the four sales was $19.73, but if one sale had been made the costs and charges would not have exceeded $7 or $8. It is plain these several sales were unnecessary and added unwarranted costs and expenses to the charges against the estate. In case of the collection by sale authorized under § 4,
The refusal of the several requests for rulings to which exceptions were, taken was right; and the entry is
Exceptions overruled.