Harris v. Friend

Citations

• 24 N.M. 627
• 175 P. 722

Syllabus

<p>SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.</p> <p>1. There can be no vested right to a mere rule of evidence. The purchaser of a tax certificate of land sold for faxes, while a statute was in force providing that a tax deed should be prima facie evidence of the regularity of prior proceedings, has no vested right under such statute, and it is competent for the legislature to repeal such a statute. P. 630</p> <p>2. The repealing and saving clause to the Codification of 1915, p. 1665, provides: “All acts and parts of acts of a general and permanent nature, not contained in this codification, are hereby repealed, * * * and the acts hereby repealed shall remain in force * * * for the preservation of all rights and their remedies existing by virtue of them; and shall also remain in force so far as they apply to any office, trust, judicial proceeding, right, contract, limitation or event already affected by them.” Section 4101, Comp. Laws 1897, which made a tax deed prima facie evidence of the regularity of prior proceedings, was omitted from the Code. Held, however, that the section was continued in force, by the above provision, in so far as a tax deed, issued upon a tax certificate purchased prior to the adoption of the codification, is concerned.</p> <p>P. 635</p> <p>3. Under section 25, c. 22, Laws 1899, the duty was cast upon the owner of property of reporting his real estate for the purpose of taxation, and to see that such property was properly listed for taxation on the assessment rolls. Where an owner of certain town lots listed two lots for taxation, along with other lots in the same block, and later struck out said two lots from the return, but did not change the valuation upon the first return, and said lots were afterwards assessed in the name of the unknown owners, under which they became delinquent and they were sold for taxes, the payment „by the former owner of his taxes upon the return so made did not constitute a payment of taxes upon the property omitted, or stricken