Howard v. State of California

BURKE, P. J.

Plaintiffs, husband and wife, failed to pay their real property taxes levied on property at Malibu for a period of several years, longer than the period required for the County of Los Angeles (defendant) and the State of California (state) to acquire title thereto by tax sale and tax deeds. The action here is to quiet title and for declaratory relief, plaintiffs claiming ownership of the property and seeking avoidance of the claimed title of defendant. Having acquired title through operation of law for nonpayment of taxes and thereafter having deeded the property to the county, the

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state has filed a disclaimer in the action. A motion for summary judgment was made by defendant, asserting the validity of all proceedings culminating in final tax title in defendant, that the redemption period had lapsed and plaintiffs’ causes of action were barred by the statutes of limitations. Such motion was granted and judgment entered thereupon, from which plaintiffs appeal.

By affidavits filed in opposition to the motion for summary judgment, each plaintiff averred under penalty of perjury that each had believed the other had been paying taxes all during the period of delinquency. They were living apart, in New York and Connecticut; personal property tax bills were received by the wife through the mail and paid. “. . . I was led to believe that the real property taxes were being paid because no notice was ever received that they were delinquent. . . . ” [Affidavit.] The husband likewise stated,

. .

I was told that no notices had been sent to me . . . because I had not filed a written property statement showing those [the addresses of the property] as my addresses. I had filed such a statement, however.”

It would be neither helpful nor necessary to pursue the detailed arguments respecting each of a number of plaintiffs’ contentions alleging invalidity of the tax proceedings or that the declarations in opposition to the motion for summary judgment presented triable issues of fact since it is readily apparent that plaintiffs’ action is barred by the statutes of limitations.

Plaintiffs purchased the real property in question prior to 1951; taxes were levied thereon for the period from 1951 through 1956, none of which have been paid. Two parcels were involved. Parcel 1 was sold to the state by operation of law on June 30, 1952, for nonpayment, and on July 1, 1957, the five-year period of redemption having expired, Parcel 1 was deeded to the state, and on July 17, 1958, the state deeded the property to defendant county. With respect to Parcel 2, taxes were levied for the years 1952 through 1957; on June 30, 1953, the property was sold to the state for nonpayment; on July 1, 1958, the property was deeded to the state and on November 12, 1959, the state deeded parcel 2 to defendant county.