79 So. 208 | La. | 1918
At a public tax sale, on August 2, 1910, the treasurer of the city of New Orleans adjudicated to defendant a certain lot of ground with improvements thereon for the unpaid city taxes of the year 1908. Within the time prescribed by law plaintiff offered and attempted to redeem the property by tendering to defendant the amount of .taxes, costs, interest, and penalties to which it was entitled, but the latter refused to accept the tender, and the only ground now urged on appeal to justify such refusal is that plaintiff had no right whatever to redeem said property either as owner, legatee, mortgagor, or creditor.
“The sole object of the state is to collect its revenues, and not to destroy rights, further than is absolutely necessary to effect such collection; and the right to redeem, we think, still exists in the owner or quasi owner,” etc.
Again, in the case of State ex rel. Busha’s Heirs v. Register of Conveyances, 113 La. 100, 36 South. 902, we said:
“We think that any one may, for the advantage of the owner, as negotiorum gestor, make payment for him of the redemption money, even without his knowledge.”
See C. C. arts. 2133, 2134.
In the case of Bentley v. Cavallier, 121 La. 60, 46 South. 101, where the adjudicatee at tax sale attempted to deprive the defendant of the right of redemption on the ground that she had no title, this court said:
“One who has possessed a tract of land as owner for a number of years is considered in law as provisional owner, with exclusive rights of entry and possession, and is entitled to redeem the land from a tax sale.”