Meruelo Maddux Properties, Inc v. County of Los Angeles Tax Coll

MEMORANDUM

Even assuming arguendo that the loan agreements at issue here gave Bank of America the right to pay property taxes the borrowers owed the County of Los Angeles, the County had no obligation to accept those payments at the bankruptcy hearing. Tax payments may be made only at the tax collector’s office or a location duly authorized by the board of supervisors. See Cal. Rev. & Tax.Code § 2613. A bankruptcy court is neither. Bank of America has not adduced any evidence that the other locations where the County accepted tax payments (a post office box and via electronic funds transfer) were not duly authorized. The general rule that an offer of performance may be made “[w]herever the person to whom the offer ought to be made can be found,” Cal. Civ.Code § 1489, is not to the contrary, because section 1489 is applicable only “[i]n the absence of an express provision to the contrary,” id., and thus is superseded by the express requirements of section 2613. See also United States v. Soberanes, 318 F.3d 959, 963 (9th Cir.2003) (“[W]hen there is an apparent conflict between a specific provision and a more general one, the more specific one governs....”). Nor has Bank of America…