Shell v. Duncan

Citations

• 31 S.C. 547
• 5 L.R.A. 821
• 10 S.E. 330
• 1889 S.C. LEXIS 64

Syllabus

<p>1. Under the law of this State (Gen. Stat., § 313), one holding the county auditor’s deed for land purchased at a delinquent land sale for nonpayment of taxes, has prima facie good title, and is, therefore, entitled to recover this land from the person in whose name it was listed and sold, unless such person proves a non-compliance with the necessary-legal prerequisites to the sale, and unless, perhaps, the auditor’s deed shows upon its face such non-compliance. Mr. Justice McGowan, dissenting.</p> <p>2. The supply act of December, 1885, provided that all taxes therein assessed should be paid not later than December 15, 1886, and delinquent lands should be sold on the first Monday of March in 1887. In December, 1886, the legislature extended the time for the payment of taxes to January 15, 1887. Section 552 of the General Statutes gives to the comptroller general, with the approval of the governor, power to extend the time for the collection of taxes, and when so extended, to postpone ihe time within which the penalties imposed by law would attach. Held, that the comptroller general had the power, with the governor’s approval, to postpone the tax sales from March to April, and the auditor’s deed having recited such a postponement by the comptroller general, and a sale on salesday of April, the governor’s approval will bo presumed, and the purchaser takes prima facie a good title. Mr. Justice McGowan, dissenting.</p> <p>3. Incorrect, but immaterial, recitals in an auditor's deed do not vitiate it; nor is the validity of the deed afteeted by its failure to recite the performance of all necessary prerequisites to a tax sale.</p> <p>4. Á purchaser at a tax sale takes the land discharged from the taxpayer’s right of homestead therein.</p> <p>5. Under the law declaring taxes to be a lien upon the property taxed, the lien to attach at the beginning of the tax year, and to be a prior lien, but that only the tax debtor’s right and title shall be sold for non-payment, the