Foreman v. Hinchcliffe

Citations

• 106 La. 225

Syllabus

<p>Syllabus.</p> <p>It appears in this ease that the tutor of the plaintiffs, having authority from a competent court, based on the advice of a family meeting, to sell the land in question, of which his wards were the owners, for cash, adjudicated the same to a third party, and recorded the proces verbal thereof, but, at the same time, took a counter-letter from the adjudicatee, showing that he made the purchase for the benefit of the minors and paid nothing. This counter-letter was not recorded; the adjudicatee died; and the land was assessed to his estate; sold for taxes, and purchased by the defendant, who acquired possession, paid taxes, subsequently assessed, and expended some money in improvements. Thereafter, the counter-letter mentioned was recorded, and, later still, this suit was brought, by and on behalf of the original owners, attacking the adjudication by their tutor, and also attacking the tax sale, and claiming from the defendant, as a possessor in bad faith, the rents and revenues of the property from the beginning of his possession.</p> <p>1. The adjudication by the tutor is held to be valid in so far as concerns the rights of the purchaser at the tax sale, who acquired without knowledge other than such as was disclosed by the proceedings in court and the public records. But as between the plaintiffs and the original adjudicatee, there having been no sale of the property, the plaintiffs are entitled to stand in the shoes of the latter, or his heirs, for the purposes of the attack upon the tax sale, with the same rights, no greater and no less, than such adjudicatee, or his heirs, would have had if he had purchased the property, in good faith for himself.</p> <p>2. The notice to the delinquent tax-payer (in this case, the estate of the adjudicatee, which appeared upon the public records as the owner to whom the property had been assessed) not having been given as required by Article 210 of the Constitution of 1879 and Act 85 of 1888, under which law