Roberts v. Moulton
Decision Date | 29 November 1909 |
Citation | 106 Me. 174,76 A. 283 |
Parties | ROBERTS v. MOULTON. |
Court | Maine Supreme Court |
Report from Supreme Judicial Court, York County.
Writ of entry by Edwin R. Roberts against Mary A. Moulton to recover certain land. Case reported. Judgment for defendant.
Argued before WHITEHOUSE, SAVAGE, SPEAR, CORNISH, KING, and BIRD, JJ.
Cleaves, Waterhouse & Emery, for plaintiff. Natt T.
Abbott and Hiram Willard, for defendant.
This is a real action, and the plaintiff's title depends upon the validity of a tax collector's deed. Various objections have been urged against the legality of the assessment and sale, only one of which shall we have any occasion to notice.
The land was taxed and sold as the real estate of an owner, resident in the town. The defendant contends that the person against whom the tax was assessed was at the time a nonresident, and, therefore, that the sale was invalid. This contention in volves a question of fact and a question of law.
The case comes up on report. We have carefully studied the evidence reported, and deciding as well as we can, upon the face of the record, without the aid of seeing and hearing the witnesses, we think that the evidence strongly preponderates in favor of the defendant's contention. Accordingly we find that the party assessed was in fact a nonresident at the time of the assessment.
In view of the fact thus found, was the sale valid? We think it was not. The statutes nowhere require the assessors to classify landowners assessed as "resident" and "nonresident," although that was done in this case. But in the provisions of statute regulating sales by collectors (Rev. St. c. 10, 73-81) such a classification is made. Different provisions are made for the sale of the real estate of a resident owner, than for the sale of the real estate of a nonresident owner. The difference relates to manner of giving notice of the sale, the time for delivering the deeds, and the time and prerequisites for redemption. As to the sale itself, and the certificates of notice and sale, the same provisions apply to both cases.
Under section 73, in the case of the real estate of resident owners, the collector is required to give notice of his intention to sell, by posting notices thereof in the same manner and places as warrants for town meetings are required to be posted, six weeks before the time for sale; and in the case of the real estate of nonresident owners, by causing such notices to be published in a newspaper published in the county, if any, if not in the state paper, three weeks successively, the first publication to be at least six weeks before the sale. It may be that the failure to publish notice as required by this section would not be fatal to the validity of a collector's sale of the real estate of a nonresident owner, for it further provided in the same section that "no irregularity, informality or omission in giving the notices required by this section * * * shall render such sale invalid, but such sale shall be deemed to be legal and valid, if made at the time and place herein provided, and in other respects according to law, except as to the matter of notice." It is not to be understood by this provision that the Legislature meant that a sale without notice of any kind whatever would be valid. But since this same section established both the place of sale, and the time of sale, even to...
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Inhabitants of Town of Warren v. Norwood
...than in any other field. The thought which underlies the principle was ably stated long since in this court in Roberts v. Moulton, 106 Me. 174, at page 176, 76 A. 283: "Every taxpayer is held to know that if he does not pay the taxes assessed upon his real estate, it will be sold by the col......
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City of Auburn v. Mandarelli
...and failure strictly to follow the statutory delineated ritual will destroy the validity of the tax lien certificate. Roberts v. Moulton, 1909, 106 Me. 174, 76 A. 283; Inhabitants of the Town of Warren v. Norwood, 1941, 138 Me. 180, 24 A.2d 229; Scavone v. Davis, 1946, 142 Me. 45, 45 A.2d 7......
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van Woudenberg v. Valentine
...Whitmore v. Learned, 70 Me. 276, 278; United Copper Min. & Smelting Company v. Franks, 85 Me. 321, 322, 27 A. 185; Roberts v. Moulton, 106 Me. 174, 176, 76 A. 283. A conveyance of real estate for nonpayment of taxes is, in general, for an inadequate consideration, on ex parte proceeding, an......