Hill v. Williams

McSherry, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from an order passed by the Circuit Court of Baltimore City. By that order a sale of certain real estate made by the Tax Collector of the city to satisfy unpaid State and city taxes was ratified and the objections which had been previously filed against the confirmation of that sale were overruled. On November the sixteenth, nineteen hundred and three, the City Tax Collector duly advertised that he would sell at public auction at the Real Estate Exchange Salesrooms on December the fourteenth following certain described real estate upon which the taxes then due were in arrear.

On the day designated the Collector sold the following described lot, being one of those named in the advertisement, viz., “Lot No. 2431 (1638 Pennsylvania avenue). Beginning on the northwest side of Pennsylvania avenue 86 feet 8 inches southeasterly from Sewell street and at the southeast line of a lot (owner unknown); thence southwesterly along said lot 87 feet; thence southeasterly 12 feet 6 inches to a lot (owner unknown); thence northeasterly along said lot 87 feet to Pennsylvania avenue, and thence northwesterly along said avenue 12 feet 6 ⁶⁰² inches to the beginning.” “A vacant lot No. 1638. Assessed to Slingluff Est. for State and city taxes 1901, 1902, and city taxes 1903, $37.32.” The lot was purchased at that sale by by Charles McConnell in the name of George L. Mattingly for three hundred and fifty dollars. On the seventeenth day of December, 1904, the Collector, Mr. Henry Williams, reported the sale to the Court; the papers were then referred to an auditor' and master, who on the fourth of January, 1905, certified that the proceedings appeared to be regular.

On the succeeding day an order of Court was published warning all persons interested in the said lot, which was described in precisely the same terms as it had been in the original advertisement of sale, to appear in Court by the twenty-first day of February, 1905, to show cause, if any they had, why the sale' should not be ratified and confirmed. On February the sixteenth Mrs. Harriet L. Hill filed exceptions to the ratification of the sale. Those exceptions are, first, that the .lot of ground although designated in the advertisement of sale as a vacant lot * * * is an alley way eleven feet wide, or thereabouts. Second: That said lot of ground was dedicated to the use of the abutting property owners as an alley way by the owners of the property, as by reference to a deed from Fielder C. Slingluff and others, executors to Harriet L. Hill will appear, wherein said owners call for said lot as an alley way eleven feet wide to be left open for use in common.

Third:. That Harriet L. Hill is the owner of a lot of ground binding on said alley * * * and that inasmuch as the exceptant and the public have an easement over said lot for an alley way, the exceptant suggests that said lot was not a proper subject for taxation. Fourth: For other reasons to be assigned at the hearing. Testimony was subsequently taken before an examiner and the case was later on heard with the result already indicated.

It appears that oh the eighth of December, 1890, the executors of the Slingluff estate conveyed to Mrs. Hill three, lots of ground fronting on the southwest side of Pennsylvania avenue in Baltimore City, the northernmost one of which was ⁶⁰³ bounded on its northwesterly line by an alley “eleven feet wide to be left open for use in common.” Before this conveyance in 1890 these lots and this alley way formed parts of a larger portion of land all of which was assessed to the Slingluff estate. The lots sold to Mrs. Hill were evidently transferred to her on the assessment book whilst the strip of twelve feet six inches spoken of as the alley “eleven feet wide” remained assessed to the Slingluff estate, and was treated as a vacant lot. It is quite apparent that the fee of that strip, lot or alley way, whatever it may be called, remained in the Slingluff executors subject to the easement which Mrs. Hill possessed in it. The first, second and third objections, to the ratification of the sale present substantially the same question, and that question is this: Assuming that the strip of ground twelve feet six inches wide which runs back from Pennsylvania avenue’ a depth of eighty-seven feet to a four-foot alley in the rear of the three lots owned by Mrs. Hill under the Slingluff deed is an alley way can it be assessed for purposes of taxation?

It is not a public street or alley. It was designed for the use of the occupants of the three lots conveyed by the Slingluff deed to Mrs. Hill, and the only interest or estate acquired by the grantee under that deed in that strip of ground was a right of way from Pennsylvania avenue to the four-foot alley in the rear of her three lots. As the fee simple title remained in the Slingluff estate the land was properly assessed to that estate. It was no part of the duty of'the Appeal Tax Court to inquire into or separately value the interest or easement which Mrs. Hill secured under the deed.

And there is nothing in our general tax system which compels the collector to examine what title a party has to land with which he is assessed. The assessments are made by other officers, and he is not required to review or to verify their proceedings before making a sale. Cooper et al. v. Holmes, 71 Md. 20 . It is not compatible with public convenience and the prompt collection of revenue for the State to trace out all the sub-divided or qualified interests that may be held in real estate, and seek to hold ⁶⁰⁴ the various owners responsible.

Its policy is to assess the fee simple