Opinion ID: 4017222
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Seated vs. Unseated Land

Text: The critical distinction between the legal analysis in the case at bar and current property law is the concept of unseated land. Prior to 1947, Pennsylvania’s land was 7 categorized as either seated or unseated land. Seated land was property that had been developed with residential structures, had personal property upon it that could be “levied upon for the tax due”, or was producing regular profit through cultivation, lumbering, or mining. Robert Grey Bushong, Pennsylvania Land Law, Vol 1, § 469(II) at 500-501 (1938). Unseated land is best understood as “wild” land but included any land that did not meet the requirements of being seated. Id. § 469(IV) at 501. The determination of whether land was seated or unseated land was entirely based upon the “eye of the assessor,” who would traverse the county determining whether land was being developed and then “return” the land to the county commissioners to assess the property for taxation. Stoetzel v. Jackson et al, 105 Pa. 562, 567 (Pa. 1884). 7 In 1947, the legislature repealed some of the acts underlying the concept of unseated land taxation and, instead, defined “property” for purposes of the Real Estate Tax Sale Law as including both seated and unseated land. See 72 P.S. §§ 5860.102; 5860.801. [J-8-2016] - 9 Between the Revolution and the early 1800s, large tracts of wilderness in the interior of Pennsylvania were owned by speculators who lived on the coast in hopes that the land would increase in value as the population increased. Bushong, § 470 at 502. Many of these landowners neither developed nor paid the taxes on the land. Id. Notably, the owners of unseated lands were not always known by the county authorities such that personal notice could not be given. Long v. Phillips, 88 A. 437, 438 (Pa. 1913) (observing that for unseated land “it frequently occurs that the owner's deed is not recorded, his name is not registered, he is not known, no one is in actual possession, and there is no apparent owner or reputed owner in the neighborhood of the property.). The Commonwealth developed different sets of land tax laws to address the difficulties regrading collecting tax on unseated land. Bushong, § 472 at 503. If the assessor determined that the land was seated, the land was taxed to the land owner, who was personally responsible for the payment of the taxes which could be collected against his or her personal property. Id., 469(II) at 501. The owner of unseated land, however, was not personally responsible for the payment of taxes, which were instead imposed on the land itself, in the name of the person to whom the original warrant had been issued. See Proctor v. Sagamore Big Game Club, 166 F. Supp. 465, 475 (W.D. Pa. 1958), aff’d, 265 F.2d 196 (3d Cir. 1959). The current owner’s name would be used “only for the purpose of description.” F.H. Rockwell & Co. v. Warren County, et al, 77 A. 665, 665-666 (Pa. 1910). As explained by this Court in 1841, [T]he land itself, and not the owner of it, is debtor for the public charge; and it is therefore immaterial, at the moment of sale, what may be the state of the ownership, or how many derivative interests may have been carved out of it. With these the public has no concern. They are sold with the land, just as a remainder would be sold with the particular estate. [J-8-2016] - 10 Strauch v. Shoemaker, 1 Watts & Serg. 166, 175 (Pa. 1841) (quotation marks omitted); see also Bannard v. New York State Natural Gas Corp., 293 A.2d 41, 49 (Pa. 1972) (holding that “it is immaterial that the name of the owner as given in the assessment is inaccurate, since no personal liability is involved; the land, not the owner, is looked to for payment of delinquent taxes”). As was true for seated land, this Court concluded that unseated land could be severed into surface and subsurface estates, which could be separately assessed, taxed, and, if necessary, sold at tax sale. Rockwell, 77 A. at 666. There is ample evidence in our caselaw citing to the tax books of various counties indicating the assessment and sale of mineral estates separate from the surface. See e.g. Bannard, 293 A.2d at 45; Wilson v. A. Cook Sons Co., 148 A. 63, 64 (Pa. 1929) (“where there is divided ownership of the land there ought to be a divided taxation”). The parties do not dispute that the Eleanor Siddons Warrant was unseated land at the time of the 1935 tax sale. Accordingly, we consider the taxation system on unseated property which we have noted is “separate and distinct from that enacted for the collection of taxes on other subjects. Long, 88 A. at 438.