This case involves the right of a former owner of mineral interest to purchase at county commissioners’ sale the interest of a former cotenant in the minerals, where such interests and the land in which they were located had been sold to the county at tax resale.
The plaintiffs, Maud Dean Wilson, V. V. Criswell and Bonita Criswell, husband and wife, W. C. Peery, and T. R. Wilson, successors in interest of the purchaser from the county commissioners, brought this action to quiеt title to the lands and mineral interests involved against the defendant, L. E. Patterson, Jr., administrator of the estate of L. E. Patterson, deceased, and others. The case was tried on an agreed statement of facts, and the trial court rendered judgment in favor of plaintiffs. From this judgment L. E. Patterson, administrator, alone appeals.
From the stipulated facts it appears that on December 3, 1920, L. E. Patterson purchased from the owner of thе fee-simple title an undivided one-half interest in the mineral rights under a certain tract of land in Seminole county, and that on November 13, 1926, Patterson conveyed to Irvin L. Wilson an undivided one-fourth interest in the mineral rights in said property; that thereafter Patterson and Wilson continued as cotenants or tenants in common of such mineral rights until April 21, 1939, when the property was sold to Seminole county at tax resale because of the failure of the surfаce owner to pay ad valorem taxes. Plaintiffs are the successors in interest of Irvin L. Wilson.
It is agreed that all proceedings in connection with the resale were valid, and that the resale tax deed convеyed title to the tract, both as to the surface and minerals, to the county commissioners of Seminole county; that on December 7, 1939, the county commissioners of Seminole county made, executed and delivered to Irvin L. Wilson a good, valid and sufficient commissioners’ deed to the property, which deed was filed for record on August 9, 1940; that immediately after the delivery of said commissioners’ deed Irvin L. Wilson went into possession of the property, and that he and his grantees have at all times thereafter been in the full, open, notorious, exclusive and hostile possession of said property, claiming the full fee-simple title thereto. It was further agreеd that defendants at no time prior to the filing of their answer in the instant case ever offered to pay plaintiffs or their predecessors in title any sum whatever in connection with the said property, and that shortly priоr to the filing of this suif oil development in the vicinity revived the mineral values in the land involved, which from a time prior to the resale had been of only nominal value.
For his first contention defendant urges that a cotenant cannot, by acquiring a tax title, divest the interest of one of his cotenants, citing in support of this contention Brooks v. Garner,
In the agreed statement of facts it is stipulated that Patterson and Irvin L. Wilson continued as cotenants until April 21, 1939, when the property was bid off and sold to Seminole county at tax resale. Defendant asserts that this is a stipulation of facts and cannot bind the court on questions of law. Whether it be a stipulation of fact or of law the statement is correct, since when the title passed to Seminole county by an admittedly valid resale tax deed, it divested both plaintiff and defendant of all right, title or interest in the property, save and except the right to redeem the land frоm the tax sale on or before December 1, 1939, the period of redemption fixed by the 1939 Law,
In Cantrell v. Marshall,
“Under the law the title to lands sold at resale passed to the purchaser and all right, title and interest therein of the previous owner was extinguished. The effect of the special Act was merely to afford to the prior owner an opportunity to redeem provided certain things, which are made a condition precedent to the redemption, be done.”
Unquestionably when the title to the land and minerals passed to and vested in Seminole county, the cotenancy of plaintiff and defendant was terminated. The only right which either Wilson or Patterson thеn had was the right to redeem, not his interest in the minerals alone, since that was not separately taxed, but to redeem the entire property from the tax sale, and then endeavor to collect from his co-tеnants their proportionate share of the tax. It is not contended that Wilson, who was simply an owner of a mineral interest, was under any legal or moral obligation to so redeem.
In Burt v. Steigleder,
“ ‘But it is plain that the principle which turns a cotenant into a trustee who buys for himself a hostile outstanding title, can have no proper application to a public sale of the common propеrty, either under legal process or a power in a trust deed. In such a situation, the sale not being in any wise the result of collusion nor subject to the control of such a bidder, he is as free, all deceit and fraud out of thе way, as any one of the general public.’ ”
In that case we sustained the judgment of the trial court holding the acquisition of one tenant’s interest by the other cotenants wrongful, for the reason that the purchasing cotеnants failed to notify the attorney for the other cotenant of the time of the foreclosure sale, which they had promised to do, and the further reason that the purchaser at the foreclosure sale bid thе property in for the purchasing co-tenants, so that while the sale was ostensibly to a third party it was really a sale to the cotenants themselves. No such situation existed in the instant case.
In Ammann v. Foster,
“The rule that one tenant in common will not be permitted to acquire title to the common property solely for his own benefit, or to the exclusion of his cotenant, does not apply to a sale of real property sold at a bona fide sheriff’s sale under a judgment foreclosing *530 a mortgage on said property, where the consideration paid was adequate and fair and where it does not appear that the purchaser wаs guilty of fraud, deceit, or collusion, and where such tenant seeking to participate has been guilty of laches.”
Although these cases involved the sales of lands under mortgage foreclosure, we consider the same rule applicable to tax sales for the reason that in such sales, as in judicial sales, regardless of who the purchaser of the property may be, the title of the former owner is wholly divested. In such casе, where no fraud, collusion, or inequitable conduct is involved, and where there is no moral or legal obligation upon a cotenant to pay the taxes, we see no reason why such cotenant may not, if the lаnd has been sold to the county or a third party and the title of the former owner and the cotenant has been thereby terminated, acquire the property from the purchaser at the tax sale. No good reаson can be suggested for holding that in such case a cotenant, by virtue of his former co-tenancy, is forever precluded from obtaining title to the property free from the claim of other cotenants.
In Phillips v. Gibbs,
Defendant calls attention to the fact that Wilson made his bid for the commissioners’ deed prior to the expiration of the redemption period. We are unable to see that this prejudiced Patterson in any way, since it placed no restriction upon his right to redeem had he so desired. The 1939 Law,
Affirmed.