Wilson v. Cantrell

Citations

• 40 S.C. 114
• 18 S.E. 517
• 1893 S.C. LEXIS 18

Syllabus

<p>1. Tax Lien.. — Under the law of this State, the lien for taxes is paramount to the lien of a mortgage executed before these taxes were assessed, and a purchaser at the tax sale has a better title than that acquired at a subsequent foreclosure sale.</p> <p>2. Tax Sales — .Purchase by Attorney — Creditor.—Pending litigation involving the foreclosure of a mortgage, the attorney for the mortgagor, who was then out of the State, purchased the mortgaged lands for himself and took the sheriff’s deed in his own name, and afterwards the mortgagee purchased this land at the foreclosure sale. Held,, that the purchase by the attorney was voidable at the instance of his client, the mortgagor, but he acquiescing, the mortgagee could not assail the tax title, which, thus acquired, was the better title.</p> <p>3. Law Case — Findings op Fact by the master, concurred in by the Circuit Judge, in a law case thus heard by consent, are beyond review by this court.</p> <p>4. Tax Execution — -Time to Issue — Sale.—TJnder the statute requiring a tax execution to issue “immediately upon the expiration of the time allowed by law for the payment of taxes,” a sale under such an execution, not issued for more than a month after the time so fixed, is not, therefore, illegal.</p> <p>5. Tax Sale — Quantity oe Land. — The tax act of 1881 (19 Stat., 862,) requires the sheriff to seize so much of the taxpayer’s estate as may be necessary to raise the sum of money named in the tax execution, and to advertise and sell it, paying over any surplus proceeds of sale to the taxpayer. Held, that a sale of a single tract of land for the small sum due for taxes, penalties, and costs thereon was not illegal because of the sheriif’s failure to subdivide the tract into smaller lots.</p> <p>6. Tax Execution — Poll Tax. — -The inclusion of the unpaid poll tax in the execution under which the sheriff sold the land, would not render the sale void, even if improperly included, but it was properly included in the am