Vincent v. Plecker Et Al‪.‬

LUMMUS, Justice. With some difficulty the material allegations of fact can be extracted from the bill. On December 31, 1940, the defendant Plecker owned and lived upon a lot on the westerly side of Baker Street in Amesbury, numbered 33 on a certain plan recorded in the registry of deeds. To the north of that lot were lots numbered 34 and 35 on that plan, both of which had been taken on December 20, 1938, by the town of Amesbury for nonpayment of taxes, but rights of redemption evidently had not been foreclosed, because two years from the taking had scarcely expired. G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 60, §§ 65, 79. The bill does not allege that the plaintiff had any interest in those lots that would entitle him to redeem. G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 60, § 62, as amended. About December 31, 1940, the plaintiff told the defendant Plecker that he intended to buy lots 34 and 35, and she pointed out the boundaries to him. On that day he paid the defendant town $60 and redeemed those lots from the tax taking receiving from the town treasurer an instrument in the form prescribed by G.L.(Ter.Ed.) c. 60, § 62, as amended, acknowledging satisfaction of the tax for which the lots were taken and held. Believing, as the defendant Plecker knew he believed, that he was the owner of those lots, he improved them by cultivation for several years, and improved a cow stable and a hog house on one of them.