Buskirk v. Lawrence

• Decision Date: 12 March 1910
• Docket Number: 16,387
• Parties: WILLIAM T. VAN BUSKIRK, Appellant, v. ARTHUR LAWRENCE et al., Appellees
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

107 P. 538

82 Kan. 76

WILLIAM T. VAN BUSKIRK, Appellant, v. ARTHUR LAWRENCE et al., Appellees

No. 16,387

Supreme Court of Kansas

March 12, 1910

Decided January, 1910.

Appeal from Morton district court; WILLIAM H. THOMPSON, judge.

Judgment affirmed.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

TAX DEEDS -- Selling Price Omitted -- Misstatement of Cost of Redemption -- Presumptions. A tax deed based upon a sale to the county and an assignment of the certificate, which does not in terms state the sale price and which misstates the cost of redemption, which was the consideration for the assignment, is not void on its face if, from data furnished by the deed and the law, aided by the presumptions which may legitimately be indulged, the sale price may be ascertained and the recital corrected.

Stephen H. Allen, Otis S. Allen, and George S. Allen, for the appellant.

G Porter Craddock, William Easton Hutchison, and C. E. Vance, for the appellees.

OPINION

BURCH, J.:

In this case a tax deed, of record more than five years, recites a sale to the county on September 4, 1894, for the taxes of 1893, an assignment of the certificate on March 28, 1898, for $ 8, the cost of redemption at that time, the payment of subsequent taxes for the year 1894, amounting to $ 9.15, for the year 1895, amounting to $ 8, and for the year 1896, amounting to $ 5.75, an aggregate of $ 30.86, and a conveyance on March 28, 1898, for a paid consideration of $ 41.84, the taxes, costs and interest for the years 1893, 1894, 1895 and 1896. It is said the tax deed is void on its face because the sale price is not stated and the certificate was assigned for a sum less than the cost of redemption. If from data furnished by the law and the deed, and the presumptions which may legitimately be indulged, it is possible to meet these criticisms, the deed is not void on its face. There is no difficulty in doing this by making an analysis of the consideration stated in the deed.

The cost of making the deed was fifty cents, the fee for the certificate was ten cents, and the fee for the redemption notice is fixed by law at twenty-five cents as a maximum. Assume, as it is proper to do (Glenn v. Stewart, 78 Kan. 605, 97 P. 863), that the fee in fact paid was twenty cents. The sum of these charges is eighty cents, which, deducted from the consideration, leaves $ 41.04. The land having been sold to the county, it was not resold for subsequent...