Gulf States Land and Improvement Company v. Wade

• Decision Date: 06 February 1899
• Docket Number: 12,800
• Citation: 25 So. 105,51 La.Ann. 251
• Court: Louisiana Supreme Court
• Parties: THE GULF STATES LAND AND IMPROVEMENT COMPANY v. WIDOW V. Wade

25 So. 105

51 La.Ann. 251

THE GULF STATES LAND AND IMPROVEMENT COMPANY v. WIDOW V. Wade

No. 12,800

Supreme Court of Louisiana

February 6, 1899

[Copyrighted Material Omitted]

OPINION

NICHOLLS, C.J.

ON APPLICATION FOR REHEARING.

When the State has become the adjudicatee of property sold at tax sale, it is not obliged to take immediate possession, but may permit the original owner, or others to hold possession of it. If the former owner does not redeem it, the State may (under legal authority) sell this property as any other owner could do, on such terms and conditions as it sees fit. The Act of 1888 authorizes it to sell at auction the properties held by it as adjudicatee upon the condition that the purchaser shall pay all taxes, State, parish and municipal, existing on them at the time of the sale of the same, and making the vesting of title in the purchaser conditioned upon the fact of payment. Sales of this kind are sometimes spoken of as "tax sales;" but the term is misapplied. A tax sale is a sale made of property proceeded against by the State as belonging to some one other than itself, in enforcement of taxes due by that property and its owners. The sales in question, though they may result in placing in the treasury an amount equal to the amount of taxes which would have been on it, had the property belonged to some one else, are not made in the enforcement of taxes, for there are in reality no taxes upon it, as the property of the State itself is not taxed. The declaration in the advertisement of sale that the purchaser should pay all the taxes upon it, at the time of the sale, is nothing more than a declaration as to the amount the property must bring at the sale, and the character of the sale is not other or different than it would have been, had the tax collector made a calculation of the amount of these taxes and omitting all reference to taxes had declared that the purchaser should pay that particular amount as a condition to obtaining title.

Had the State, being as it was, the adjudicatee of this property through the sales made in enforcement of the taxes of 1880 and 1881, as the property of Mrs. Sarah Dunbar, sold the property, as owner, to R. C. Wade, and had he failed to make payment as required by the terms and conditions of the sale at which he purchased, and had the State then, as being owner of the same, sold the property to Negrotto, we would have had before us a case...