Tensas Delta Land Co. v. Sholars

Citations

• 105 La. 357

Syllabus

<p>Syllabus.</p> <p>1. Considering the mandatory requirement ol Act 88 of 1888, parties to an act of conveyance of real property are not at liberty to dispense with the production of evidence of the payment of taxes, and notaries and other officials authorized to execute public acts are forbidden by law to pass any act importing the sale, transfer or exchange of real estate until there is .produced the tax collector’s receipt or certificate showing payment of State, parish and municipal taxes assessed against the same for three years next preceding the execution of the act.</p> <p>2. The notice of delinquency required to be given or mailed to the tax debtor is sacramental, and failure to give it vitiates all subsequent proceedings taken for the sale of the property to enforce payment of taxes.</p> <p>3. Deeds of sale made by collectors of taxes are required by law, both constitutional and statutory, tp be received by courts in evidence as prima facia valid sales.</p> <p>4. But when there is evidence adduced sufficient to rebut this prima facia character of the deed, and to fatally imperil the presumption of regularity which attaches to the tax sale, there is thrown upon the party who holds under the tax title the burden of sustaining the latter by testimony aliunde the deed.</p> <p>5. In a matter of so much public importance as tax sales a record in writing in each case should be kept by tax-collectors of how and when, the manner, etc., of giving notice of delinquency to tax-debtors, and officially signed. And if this record does not make proof of its recitals, as does the return of the sheriff on a citation, it could be given that effect by legislation.</p>