Howard

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 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…