88 Neb. 635 | Neb. | 1911
Plaintiff brought suit in the district court for Garfield county to redeem from a private tax sale of the southwest quarter of section 32, township 22, range 14, in said county. Issues were joined, and from a decree dismissing plaintiff’s suit for' want of equity, and quieting defendants’ title to the lands in controversy, plaintiff appeals.
A number of questions are argued in briefs of counsel, but, as one of the points discussed is decisive of the case, the others will not be considered. The land was sold by the treasurer, at private sale, to J. R. Ratcliff on March 25, 1902, for the delinquent taxes for the years 1899 and 1900. The tax sale certificate was assigned by Ratcliff to P. P. Scott January 16, 1904. November 5, 1903, prior to the assignment, Ratcliff prepared and signed a notice to redeem and deliver it to F. M. Key, who at that time was sheriff of Garfield county, for service. The proof of service was made by Mr. Key, not by affidavit as required by statute, but in an ordinary form of return as sheriff. Upon this proof of service alone the treasurer on April 1, 1904, issued to P. P. Scott, assignee of Ratcliff, a tax deed. On July 1, 1905, P. P. Scott and wife conveyed the land
- The statute in force at the time the tax sale was made and tax deed issued was the revenue law of 1879, which without change appears as section 123, art. I, ch. 77, Comp. St. 1901, which provided among other things: “Hereafter no purchaser or assignee of such purchaser of any land, town or city lot, at any sale of lands or lots for taxes or special assessments due, either to the state or any county or any incorporated town .or city within the same, or at any sale for taxes or levies authorized by the laws of this state, shall be entitled to a deed for the lands or lots so purchased, until the following conditions have been complied with, to wit: Such purchaser or assignee shall serve or* cause to be served a written or printed or partly written and partly printed notice of such purchase on every person in actual possession or occupancy of such land or lot, and also the person in whose name the same was taxed or specially assessed, if upon diligent inquiry he can be found in the county, at least three months before the expiration
The judgment of the district court is reversed and the cause remanded, with directions to enter a decree canceling the tax deed under which defendant claims, permitting plaintiff to redeem from the tax sale, and quieting plaintiff’s title to the property, in accordance with the prayer of his petition.
Reversed.