Interstate Realty & Improvement Co. v. Clark

Plaintiff sued to quiet title to certain real property situated in Los Angeles County. The defendant answered, setting up in haec verba a tax deed from the state covering the same property. The plaintiff did not controvert the deed by affidavit or further pleading and the parties went to trial on the complaint and answer. Judgment was rendered for the plaintiff upon findings that the tax deed was void on its face, and from the judgment the defendant has appealed on a typewritten record.

The tax deed was executed on July 21, 1922, and recited that the property was regularly assessed for taxation in the year 1916 to Bernard Hiss, and was sold on July 5, 1922, to the defendant for nonpayment of taxes which had been levied in the year 1916. At the trial the plaintiff offered evidence to show that title to the property passed from Bernard Hiss to Citizens Trust and Savings Bank on October 3, 1913, by deed which was duly recorded on October 31, 1913. The plaintiff urges that the tax deed was void on its face because it appeared from the recitals therein that the property had not been assessed to the true owner; that it was sold for a delinquency of 1916, upon an assessment of 1915, and…