Glowner v. De Alvarez (1909) · DecisionDepot

Glowner v. De Alvarez

Name: California Superior Court Tentative Rulings
Creator: DecisionDepot
License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

California Court of Appeal Mar 9, 1909 No. Civ. No. 599.Published

Before: Taggart

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Holding. A claimant cannot establish title by adverse possession if they fail to pay all taxes levied and assessed on the property during the five-year period, even if the failure to pay the final year's taxes was due to the record owner paying them first.

Issues

Can adverse possession be established if the claimant fails to pay taxes for one of the five years because the record owner paid them first?

Disposition. affirmed

Quotations verified verbatim against the opinion

“If, when he offers to make a payment to the tax collector, the tax which has been levied has been already paid, he cannot comply with one of the requirements of the statute, and must fail to acquire a title by adverse possession.”

“The statute makes the payment of taxes as important an element as actual occupancy of the land for the purpose of gaining a title by adverse possession, and the burden is upon the claimant to do the acts required to create the adverse title.”

Synopsis

APPEAL from a judgment of the Superior Court of Los, Angeles County, and from an order denying a new trial.. George H. Hutton, Judge.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

[195]

TAGGART, J.

This is an action to quiet title. Plaintiff was the record owner of the lands in question which were sold to the state for taxes and a deed therefor made to the state in August, 1897. On November 5, 1901, a deed was made by the tax collector of Los Angeles county, where the property is situated, on behalf of the state, to the defendant, and on that day she went into possession of the entire premises under said deed, claiming title thereto, and remained in the exclusive possession thereof adverse to the whole world until the commencement of the action. She paid the taxes on the lands for the years 1902,1903, 1904 and 1905, and they were assessed to her in the year 1906 and she offered to pay the same, but the tax collector refused to accept them from her, they having already been paid by the plaintiff. It is admitted that the tax deed was void for reasons stated by the court in its findings.

The complaint is in the ordinary form, and the defendant sets up her title by tax deed and by adverse possession, both in her answer and also by cross-complaint. But the one question is presented on the appeal: Can adverse possession be established by showing that the land has been occupied and claimed for five years continuously, and all taxes thereon paid for four years, and the land assessed to the claimant for the fifth year, but the taxes for that year paid by the party against whom it is sought to acquire the title?

The answer must be in the negative. The validity of the taxes assessed against the property did not in any manner depend upon the name in which they were assessed. The assessment is of the property and not against the owner. As said in

Klumpke

Baker,

131 Cal. 80, 82, [63 Pac. 137, 676]: “The name of the owner of the property assessed is an incidental provision for the sake of convenience, but a failure to give the correct name of the owner is declared by the statute not to impair the assessment.” In connection with the establishment of a title by adverse possession, the question of assessment only becomes important for the purpose of determining whether

any

Glowner v. De Alvarez

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Synopsis

TAGGART, J.

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