Opinion ID: 1210800
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Former Owners' Counterclaim and Their Summary Judgment Quest

Text: ¶ 4 The spousal defendants argue several affirmative defenses to defeat the purchaser's suit. According to their joint answer, the wife's due process rights were violated because (a) she failed to receive actual notice of the resale and (b) her notice of resale, given by certified mail, went to the husband, who neither delivered the critical letter to her nor informed her of the impending sale. [8] Both spouses claim the sale is fatally tainted by irregularities because the published notice (a) fails to inform them of the location of the sale, (b) states that the property was being sold under certain cited statutory provisions which had been renumbered in a subsequent official compilation and were no longer in force, (c) fails to include the date the property was sold to the county for delinquent taxes [9] and (d) improperly refers to the 1991, 1992 and 1993 tax rolls, rather than to the last tax rolls in the treasurer's office. [10] Spousal defendants, who aver in their counterclaim that the resale tax deed is void for all the reasons stated in their answer, seek to have their own title quieted. ¶ 5 In support of their quest for relief by summary process, husband and wife submitted separate affidavits. According to that of the wife (a) her husband failed to deliver to her the notice of sale that was mailed by the county treasurer in an envelope addressed to her, (b) she did not receive actual notice that her home was to be sold for delinquent taxes on 10 June 1996, (c) her husband was not an authorized agent to sign the receipt for certified mail directed to her or to acknowledge her receipt of the notice from the county treasurer and (d) her husband did not tell her about the sale of her home for delinquent tax liability until after the sale had been completed. The husband's affidavit states that (a) the certified letter addressed to him and that directed to his wife were both delivered to him at his jobsite (rather than at his residence), [11] (b) he was not aware of any attempt to serve the certified letter upon his wife, (c) he still has possession of the unopened notice-bearing envelope addressed to his wife, (d) his wife had neither appointed him as her agent nor authorized him to accept certified mail on her behalf, and (e) he and his wife do not file joint income tax returns; each of them bears individual responsibility for a self-assessment to be declared.