BILL ANALYSIS AND FISCAL IMPACT REPORT	Page 1 of  1

DATE: March 13, 2001	Submitted by: TAXATION AND REVENUE DEPT.
	T. GLENN ELLINGTON, SECRETARY
BILL NUMBER: HB-794 as amended by the House Consumer and Public Affairs Committee and House Judiciary Committee

SPONSOR: Representative Martinez

BILL SHORT TITLE: Unknown Owner of Property

CONFLICTS, DUPLICATES, COMPANIONS: SB-798

DESCRIPTION: As amended, this bill would allow individuals that have occupied real property exclusively for a 25-year period to claim title to the property, assuming the actual owner of the property is not known. To claim title, the individual claiming it must pay all delinquent taxes, penalty and interest accruing to the property during the past 10 years and take a certified oath attesting to his possession of the property. If a lawful claim not subsequently made on the property within three years after the certified oath is recorded with the county clerk in the county in which the property is located, title to the property may not be disputed by another individual.

EFFECTIVE DATE: July 1, 2001

FISCAL IMPACT (Thousands of dollars): No significant impacts on state or local revenue sources would result from enactment of the proposed measure.

ADMINISTRATIVE IMPACT: The proposed measure would impose no significant administrative impacts on the Department or local governments.
 
TECHNICAL ISSUES: Intent of the phrase “for no more than the past 10 years” is unclear.  Apparent purpose is to specify that taxes, penalty and interest should be paid in full unless they have accrued for more than 10 years -- in which case the amount due will consist of taxes, penalty and interest that have accrued during the most recent 10 years. On the other hand, it could mean only that the delinquent taxes, if any, for the last year must be paid. This provision will lead to litigation. A more effective provision might be that the claimant must prove that the claimant has paid all taxes due (whether delinquent or not) for the last ten years. 

OTHER IMPACTS AND ISSUES:
1.	The proposed measure's purpose is unclear. If taxes are not paid on real property, the Property Tax Division researches title to the property and offers it for sale within about three to four years after the property taxes are unpaid. Hence for an individual to claim title to the property as allowed by the proposed statute, the individual would probably have been paying taxes on it for a period of 25 years. It thus seems extremely unlikely that significant amounts of real property of any significant value exist in New Mexico in which the owner is really unknown.

2.	This is more properly placed in Chapter 47, Property Law.  This is a device by which a private person can assert a claim to another’s real property. Hiding this device in the Property Tax Code is at best disingenuous.