Ross v. Whitfield, as personal representative of the Estate of Whitfield, [Ms. CL-2024-0343, Feb. 7, 2025] __ So. 3d __ (Ala. Civ. App. 2025). The court (Edwards, J.; Moore, P.J., and Hanson, Fridy, and Lewis, JJ., concur) affirms the Madison Circuit Court’s judgment in favor of Deborah Whitfield, as the personal representative of the estate of Gary T. Whitfield, deceased, in an action seeking to judicially redeem and to quiet title to a parcel of real property owned by the decedent that had been purchased by Howard Ross at a tax sale in May 2019 (“the property”).
The court agrees with Justice Mitchell’s construction of § 40-10-82, Ala. Code 1975, in his special concurrence in Austill v. Prescott, 293 So. 3d 333, 364-78 (Ala. 2019) and holds that “adverse possession by a tax-sale purchaser for a period of three years after the tax-sale purchaser is entitled to possession cannot extinguish the right of the property owner to judicially redeem the property.” Ms. *14, emphasis in the original. The court explains “‘[a] statute must be considered as a whole and every word in it made effective if possible.’ Alabama State Bd. of Health v. Chambers Cnty., 335 So. 2d 653, 654-55 (Ala. 1976).” Ms. *11.
Accordingly, the court rejects Ross’s argument that Whitfield’s redemption was time barred because “[t]o hold that the possession of the property by a tax-sale purchaser for three years after the tax-sale purchaser became entitled to possession of the property extinguishes the right to judicial redemption does not give any field of operation to the first sentence of § 40-10-82, which permits a property owner, regardless of his or her possession of the real property sold at a tax sale, to judicially redeem that property until the expiration of a three-year period after the tax-sale purchaser is entitled to demand a deed.” Ms. *14.