Assessing Unknown Owners

Training for: Legal Notes

Question: Is there a legal way to tax real estate even if we don’t know who owns it?

Answer: Yes, there is. Title 36 M.R.S.A. § 557-A authorizes property to be assessed to an “owner unknown” if no owner has been known to the assessors for at least the preceding 20 years, and the assessors have been unable, with reasonable diligence, to determine ownership. (“Reasonable diligence” probably means a title search in the registry of deeds.)

An assessment to owner unknown must be advertised once a week for three consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the county in which the property is located. The newspaper must also be printed in English, must be entered as 2nd class postal matter in the U.S. mails, and must include the notice in all editions and on any publicly accessible website that the newspaper maintains (see 1 M.R.S.A. § 601).

The newspaper notice must describe the real estate being assessed so that a reasonable person may know, with probable certainty, what property is being taxed. The notice must also state that the property is assessed to an owner unknown due to the failure of a reasonable search to ascertain an owner of record. This notice is sufficient legal notice of the assessment. At the time of this publication, a copy of the notice must also be sent by certified mail, return receipt requested, to each abutting property owner.

If taxes assessed to an owner unknown “go to lien,” the tax collector and treasurer must use the same notice procedures as above for the notices required for tax liens under 36 M.R.S.A. §§ 942, 943.

If notice of the assessment, in the newspaper and by mail to abutters, produces an owner with a bona fide, verifiable legal claim to the property, such as an unrecorded deed, the original assessment should be abated as erroneous (see 36 M.R.S.A. § 841(1)), and then a supplemental assessment should be made against the known owner (see 36 M.R.S.A. § 713).

For the record, someone with no legal claim to a property cannot establish one simply by paying the taxes. Nor is paying taxes generally considered evidence of adverse possession (see “Paying Taxes Not Proof in Adverse Possession Claim,” Maine Townsman, Legal Notes, August 2008).

If property assessed to an owner unknown becomes tax-acquired, the buyer might acquire title, but this is far from certain as a municipal quitclaim deed conveys only whatever interest, if any, the municipality may have acquired, and the assessment of owners unknown has never been court-tested. Even if such assessments are lawful, however, and the foreclosure is valid, the title conveyed would not be “marketable” (free from any reasonable doubt), nor does a municipality have any obligation to make it so (see “Tax-Acquired Property: No Warranties Required,” Maine Townsman, Legal Notes, April 2009). (By R.P.F.) n

Question: Is there a legal way to tax real estate even if we don’t know who owns it?

Answer: Yes, there is. Title 36 M.R.S.A. § 557-A authorizes property to be assessed to an “owner unknown” if no owner has been known to the assessors for at least the preceding 20 years, and the assessors have been unable, with reasonable diligence, to determine ownership. (“Reasonable diligence” probably means a title search in the registry of deeds.)

An assessment to owner unknown must be advertised once a week for three consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the county in which the property is located. The newspaper must also be printed in English, must be entered as 2nd class postal matter in the U.S. mails, and must include the notice in all editions and on any publicly accessible website that the newspaper maintains (see 1 M.R.S.A. § 601).

The newspaper notice must describe the real estate being assessed so that a reasonable person may know, with probable certainty, what property is being taxed. The notice must also state that the property is assessed to an owner unknown due to the failure of a reasonable search to ascertain an owner of record. This notice is sufficient legal notice of the assessment. At the time of this publication, a copy of the notice must also be sent by certified mail, return receipt requested, to each abutting property owner.

If taxes assessed to an owner unknown “go to lien,” the tax collector and treasurer must use the same notice procedures as above for the notices required for tax liens under 36 M.R.S.A. §§ 942, 943.

If notice of the assessment, in the newspaper and by mail to abutters, produces an owner with a bona fide, verifiable legal claim to the property, such as an unrecorded deed, the original assessment should be abated as erroneous (see 36 M.R.S.A. § 841(1)), and then a supplemental assessment should be made against the known owner (see 36 M.R.S.A. § 713).

For the record, someone with no legal claim to a property cannot establish one simply by paying the taxes. Nor is paying taxes generally considered evidence of adverse possession (see “Paying Taxes Not Proof in Adverse Possession Claim,” Maine Townsman, Legal Notes, August 2008).

If property assessed to an owner unknown becomes tax-acquired, the buyer might acquire title, but this is far from certain as a municipal quitclaim deed conveys only whatever interest, if any, the municipality may have acquired, and the assessment of owners unknown has never been court-tested. Even if such assessments are lawful, however, and the foreclosure is valid, the title conveyed would not be “marketable” (free from any reasonable doubt), nor does a municipality have any obligation to make it so (see “Tax-Acquired Property: No Warranties Required,” Maine Townsman, Legal Notes, April 2009). (By R.P.F.) n