Delta Property Mgmt., Inc. v. Profile Investments, Inc.

• Decision Date: 13 May 2004
• Docket Number: No. SC02-2721.,SC02-2721.
• Citation: 875 So.2d 443
• Parties: DELTA PROPERTY MANAGEMENT, INC., Petitioner, v. PROFILE INVESTMENTS, INC., Respondent.
• Court: Florida Supreme Court

875 So.2d 443

DELTA PROPERTY MANAGEMENT, INC., Petitioner, v. PROFILE INVESTMENTS, INC., Respondent.

No. SC02-2721.

Supreme Court of Florida.

May 13, 2004.

John R. Beranek of Ausley & McMullen, Tallahassee, FL; and John R. Hargrove and W. Kent Brown of Heinrich, Gordon, Hargrove, Weihe & James, P.A., Fort Lauderdale, FL, for Petitioner.

William S. Graessle of William S. Graessle & Associates, Jacksonville, FL, for Respondent.

QUINCE, J.

We have for review a decision of the First District Court of Appeal which affects a class of state or constitutional officers. Delta Prop. Mgmt. v. Profile Invs., Inc., 830 So.2d 867 (Fla. 1st DCA 2002). We have jurisdiction. See art. V, § 3(b)(3), Fla. Const. For the reasons stated below, we quash the First District's decision and hold that the clerk of the circuit court, when mailing the notice of a tax deed sale to the titleholder of the affected property, must mail the notice to the address of the titleholder as listed in the latest tax assessment roll. If the tax assessment roll is updated after the clerk receives a statement from the tax collector but prior to mailing the notice to the titleholder, the clerk must look at the new assessment roll to see if the titleholder's address has changed and, if the clerk finds that the address has changed, the clerk must mail the notice to the new address listed in the latest assessment roll.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

When Delta Property Management, Inc. (Delta) failed to pay its 1997 ad valorem taxes, a tax certificate was issued¹ by the City of Jacksonville/Duval County Tax Authority and purchased by Profile Investments, Inc. in April 1998.² In April 2000, after Delta failed to redeem the tax certificate within two years, Profile applied for a tax deed pursuant to section 197.502(1), Florida Statutes (1999). Section 197.502(1), provides in pertinent part:

The holder of any tax certificate, other than the county, at any time after 2 years have elapsed since April 1 of the year of issuance of the tax certificate and before the expiration of 7 years from the date of issuance, may file the certificate and an application for a tax deed with the tax collector of the county where the lands described in the certificate are located. The application may be made on the entire parcel of property or any part thereof which is capable of being readily separated from the whole.

Thereafter, the tax collector, pursuant to section 197.502(4), Florida Statutes (1999),³ prepared a statement which listed Delta as a party entitled to notice and specified Delta's address as it appeared on the 1999 tax assessment roll, the most recent assessment roll at the time of the issuance of the statement. The tax collector forwarded the statement to the clerk of the circuit court on May 30, 2000. The clerk then waited over three months before preparing a notice of tax sale, which was mailed to Delta on September 7, 2000, at the address indicated in the tax collector's statement. Because Delta was no longer located at the address specified in the statement,⁴ the notice was returned to the clerk as undeliverable. Profile thereafter placed the winning bid at the tax deed sale. Profile brought an action to quiet title to the property in its favor, and Delta counterclaimed, asserting that it was still the titleholder because the clerk had failed to provide proper notice of the sale. Profile and Delta each moved for summary judgment with the dispositive legal issue being whether the clerk had complied with the statutory notice requirements of section 197.522(1), Florida Statutes (1999), when he relied exclusively upon the tax collector's statement in preparing the notice of the tax sale. The trial court granted summary judgment in favor of Profile, concluding that the clerk was not required to look beyond the statement to determine whether the names and addresses of the parties were correctly listed on the tax collector's statement. The First District Court of Appeal agreed and affirmed the summary judgment.

We exercise our discretionary jurisdiction to review this case because it affects the duties of a class of state or constitutional officers, the clerks of court.

ANALYSIS

The issue in this case is whether, under chapter 197 of the Florida Statutes, the clerk of the circuit court must verify the legal titleholder's address prior to mailing the notice of the tax deed sale to that titleholder if the tax assessment roll has been or should have been updated after the tax collector provided the clerk with the tax collector's statement. We hold that the clerk is so required.

Section 197.502(4) provides that, when the holder of a tax certificate applies for a tax deed, the tax collector must deliver to the clerk of the circuit court a statement that includes a list of parties to be notified prior to the sale of the property. Among those parties required to be listed is the legal titleholder. If, as in the instant case, the legal titleholder as revealed by the public record is the same party to whom the property was last assessed, then the notice can only be mailed to the address of the legal titleholder as it appears on the latest assessment roll. The clerk must, after receipt of the statement, notify by mail the parties listed in the statement at least twenty days before the tax sale. See § 197.522(1), Fla. Stat. (1999).

In this case, the clerk, some three months after receipt of the statement from the tax collector, mailed the notice of the tax sale to Delta at the address listed in the statement. However, because Delta's address had changed, it did not receive the notice. As a result, Delta argued that its new address was listed on the 2000 tax assessment roll and that the 2000 assessment roll had been prepared by the time the clerk mailed the notice of the tax sale. Delta further argued that the clerk was required to check the 2000 tax assessment roll for any change of address before issuing the tax sale notices.

Both the trial court and the district court of appeal disagreed with Delta's contentions. In affirming the trial court's entry of summary judgment in favor of Profile, the First District found that the clerk had no duty to look beyond the tax collector's statement in preparing the notice of tax sale. Delta, 830 So.2d at 869.⁵ In arriving at this conclusion, the First District looked at the evolution of the clerk's role. As explained by the First District, prior to the 1985 statutory amendments the clerk was required to perform a diligent search of the official public records, including the most recent tax roll, in order to provide notice to the parties. Id.⁶ In 1985, however, the Legislature changed these statutory procedures, deleting the requirement in section 197.256 (renumbered as 197.522) that the clerk search through public records. Id.⁷ Therefore, the First District concluded:

Accordingly, with the 1985 statutory amendments, the clerk has been relegated to performing a purely ministerial function when providing notice of an upcoming tax sale. The clerk is no longer required to ascertain which parties are entitled to notice and diligently search the public records for proper addresses, but can instead rely exclusively upon the information contained in the tax collector's statement. Because this is precisely what the clerk did in the present case, he fully satisfied his responsibilities.

Id. at 869-70.

Delta urges this Court to quash the decision of the First District and embrace the reasoning of Judge Ervin's dissent. Judge Ervin opined that sections 197.502(4) and 197.522(1)(a), construed in pari materia, require that the clerk mail the notice of the tax sale to the address of the legal titleholder as listed in the latest tax assessment roll. Id. at 872 (Ervin, J., dissenting). Since the latest assessment roll in this case was the 2000 roll,⁸ not the 1999 roll, Judge Ervin concluded that the clerk failed to provide Delta with the notice of the tax sale. Id. Lastly, Judge Ervin refuted the majority's position, stating:

The majority appears to say that an onerous burden would be placed on the clerk if he were required to do otherwise; that he would then be forced to conduct a laborious search of the public records in order to ascertain the correct names and addresses of the persons listed in section 197.502(4) before sending the notice. I do not understand sections 197.502(4)(a) and 197.522(1)(a) to impose any such burden on the clerk. To me, a reasonable interpretation of them is that the clerk is simply directed to request the tax collector, once he is aware that the information contained in a statement may no longer be current because it was based on a tax roll since superseded, to supply him with a supplemental statement reflecting any updated material.

Id. at 873. We find Judge Ervin's dissent persuasive.

Sections 197.533(1)(a) and 197.502(4) should be read together to get a complete picture of the clerk's duties and obligations when sending notices of tax deed sales. When construing these statutes, we seek to give effect to the Legislature's intent. See State v. J.M., 824 So.2d 105, 109 (Fla.2002)

. In order to discern this intent, we first look at the actual language of the statutes. See Joshua v. City of Gainesville, 768 So.2d 432, 435 (Fla.2000). Section 197.522(1)(a) unequivocally indicates that the clerk of the circuit court must notify by mail those persons listed in the tax collector's statement of any pending tax deed sale.⁹ Additionally, section 197.502(4)(a) clearly states that, "if the legal titleholder of record is the same as the person to whom the property was assessed on the tax roll for the year in which the property was last assessed, then the notice may only be mailed to the address of the legal titleholder as it appears on the latest assessment roll." (emphasis added.) When read together, these statutory provisions require the clerk to mail a notice of tax deed sale to the legal titleholder at the...