Court Opinion

ID: 9529054
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 03:47:05.298312+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:27:38.444522
License: Public Domain

On Motion for Rehearing
POWELL, Judge..
Counsel for defendant asserts that certain statutes determinative of the controlling issue in this case were not called to the attention of the court and were likewise overlooked by the court.
The statutes in question are Tit. 19 O. S.A. § 225 providing for the consolidation of the offices of register of deeds and-county clerk, and Tit. 19 O.S.A. § 288,.which reads:
“The register [of deeds] shall also keep a well-bound book in which shall be platted all maps of cities and towns,, or additions to the same, cemeteries and other plats, required by law to be recorded within his county, together with description, acknowledgment *622or other writing thereon, and file the original plat in his office. He shall index such plat book under appropriate headings in the plat book.”
It is contended that the official plat is found only in the office of the county clerk, and hence the testimony of the officer that having the street address of the place to be searched he was thereby enabled to obtain the description now being questioned from plats in the office of the county tax assessor, was a description not to be relied on, was not the legal description, and was an erroneous description.
It is noted that 11 O.S. 1951 § 4, relating to consolidation of cities and towns, provides in part that “maps, plats, and effects of every name and nature ⅜ * * ” of the two cities or towns shall become the property of the new consolidated city or town. Apparently there is no requirement as to replatting. As a practical matter there may be replatting. There is no evidence in this respect before the court.
As to the contention that “the records of the county assessor bear no official sanction”, the attorney general in his response, points out that 68 O.S. 1951 §§ 15.51, 15.52, and 15.53, subdivision (c), expressly require the assessor to keep in his office land lists showing the description of all unplatted lands and the description of all platted lots in cities and towns, or additions thereto. Also that he is required to make up the tax rolls containing such descriptions, and after preparation such rolls are transferred to the treasurer’s office and there become the permanent records in the office of the county treasurer.
The lot in question was, according to the evidence before this court, carried on the lists and rolls of the county assessor as Lot 1, in Jennings Addition to Dawson, even though said property had been annexed within the boundaries of the city of Tulsa.
Counsel had opportunity to show by proof in the trial court that there was a discrepancy between the records in the offices of the county clerk and the county assessor by showing that the plat in the office of the county clerk had been changed. The burden was on him to so show. Franklin v. State, Okl.Cr., 279 P.2d 1116. No such pi'oof was offered, so that the question does not arise as to which record should prevail in case there might have been a discrepancy in the records of the county assessor’s office and that of the county clerk as to the description in question. We must, therefore, assume that there was no discrepancy and that the description in the office of the county clerk was identical with the records in the office of the county assessor.
JONES, P. J., and BRETT, J., concur.