John Kinder Et Al. v. Wendell Bryant Et Al.

The plaintiffs commenced this declaratory judgment action to establish that their claim to a forty-acre tract of real property is superior to that of the defendants. The plaintiffs claim to have purchased the disputed property in 1980; however, their deed was not recorded until 1995. The defendants’ predecessors in interest purchased the property at a tax sale in 1994, and their deed was duly recorded prior to the plaintiffs’ deed. The plaintiffs’ claims are based, inter alia, on adverse possession and the contention that the 1994 tax deed is void or voidable due to lack of notice of the sale. After hearing cross-motions for summary judgment, the trial court summarily dismissed the complaint finding that the plaintiffs were not entitled to notice of the tax sale because, at the time of the sale, the plaintiffs’ deed had not been recorded and the plaintiffs lacked standing to challenge the lack of notice to their predecessors in title who were the owners of record at the time of the tax sale. The trial court further found that the plaintiffs had not paid any taxes on the property and that the defendants paid the property taxes for more than twenty years, which raised the rebuttable presumption of ownership under Tenn. Code. Ann. § 28-2- 109. Based on these findings, the trial court held that Tenn. Code Ann. § 28-2-110 barred any affirmative action by the plaintiffs to claim an interest in the property and summarily dismissed the complaint. We affirm.