McGarvey v. Southern Municipal Corp.

Bruñe, C. J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The appellant, Helen E. McGarvey, had been the owner of certain real estate in Anne Arundel County. She appeals from an order of the Circuit Court for that County dismissing her petition to set aside a final decree against her in a tax foreclosure suit. The appellees are Southern Municipal Corporation (Southern) and Mary M. and Roger M. Young.

Southern had purchased a tax sale certificate covering the property here involved and in due time had filed its suit to foreclose the appellant’s equity of redemption therein, had obtained a final decree of foreclosure and had obtained title to the property pursuant thereto. The Youngs purchased it from Southern. The appellant’s contention is that the description of the property in the tax sale notice was invalid and that the Circuit Court was therefore without jurisdiction to enter a decree foreclosing the appellant’s equity of redemption. This attack, in terms, is directed against the sufficiency of the description in the tax sale notice and not against the description given in the foreclosure proceedings.

A defect in the description in the tax sale notice may be wholly immaterial ⁵⁹⁴ after foreclosure (Thomas v. Kolker, 195 Md. 470, 474 , 73 A. 2d 886 ), and tax sales have been upheld against such attacks in Oppenheimer v. Micbar Co., 192 Md. 192 , 63 A. 2d 765 , as well as in Thomas v. Kolker, supra, and against attacks based upon other alleged irregularities pertaining to tax sale proceedings, as in James v. Zantzinger, 202 Md. 109 , 96 A. 2d 10 , and in Sanchez v. James, 209 Md. 266 , 120 A. 2d 836 . See also Code (1957), Article 81, Section 109, which requires any alleged invalidity of the tax, of the proceedings to sell, or of the sale, to be set up specifically by answer in the foreclosure suit and places the burden of establishing any such invalidity upon the defendant. Section 113 of the same Article provides that no application to reopen any final decree rendered under the Tax Sales Law shall be entertained “except on the ground of lack of jurisdiction or fraud in the conduct of the proceedings to foreclose.” Of course, until such a decree is entered the delinquent taxpayer still has his right of redemption. Code (1957), Article 81, Sections 92-94.

In Oppenheimer v. Micbar Co., supra, it was said: “As the agreed statement of facts shows that a decree has been signed foreclosing all rights of redemption in the lots, no one claiming under the original owners can attack the tax sale and the appellee can convey an absolute and indefeasible title to the property.” Since the alleged defects in the description in the tax sale notice in the instant case, in our estimation, amount at the most to mere irregularities, the order here appealed from should be affirmed on the basis of the appellant’s petition and the statutes and cases above cited. We do not reach the question as to whether or not a complete failure to describe the property or a misdescription of it in the tax sale notice might be a virtual nullity and bar the application of Section 113 of Article 81 of the Code (1957). In Holland v. Billingsley, 208 Md. 635 , 119 A. 2d 380 , a decree of foreclosure in a tax case was set aside on two grounds: one, the non-joinder of parties required by the statute to be joined; the other, a faulty description of property in the tax sale advertisement which was so inadequate as to fail to identify any property with reasonable certainty, ⁵⁹⁵ and which differed somewhat from the description on the tax roll. As was pointed out in Thomas v. Hardisty, 217 Md. 523, 533 , 143 A. 2d 618 , neither Oppenheimer v. Micbar Co. nor Thomas v. Kolker, supra, both of which were decided under substantially the present law, 1 were cited in Holland v. Billingsley, supra.

In Thomas v. Hardisty, the misdescription of the property there held fatal was (as the majority opinion noted) apparently the same in the foreclosure proceeding as in the tax sale advertisement. The property was misdescribed as located in one Election District when actually it was in another. Even if we assume that the appellant’s petition properly raises a question of jurisdiction in the foreclosure case, we think that the description of the property was adequate. As was said in Holland v. Billingsley ( 208 Md. at 641 ) : “The general rule is that the advertisement of a tax sale must describe with reasonable certainty the property to be sold, so that from an examination of the foreclosure proceedings a person of ordinary intelligence can locate the property sought to be foreclosed. * * * The property should be so described as to admit of its identification by recourse to official records or at least by some means which may be referred to as common or general knowledge.” The tax rolls described the property in question as “Lot 1 SQ 2 & Imp.

Fair Haven 41.02 x 135 Gar—17.” (A tax receipt suggests that “Gar—17” refers to Garbage Collection District No. 17.) The tax sale notice was in this form: “8—9407 McGarvey, Helen E.—Lot 1 Sq. 2 & ⁵⁹⁶ Imp. 41.02 x