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IN THE SUPREME COURT OF IOWA
No. 73 / 04-1232 Filed October 6, 2006 BILL FENNELLY, SCOTT COUNTY TREASURER, Appellant, vs. A-1 MACHINE & TOOL CO., Appellee. ________________________________________________________________________ Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Scott County, John Nahra, Judge.

The Scott County Treasurer appeals from an adverse summary judgment holding that some of his claims for delinquent property taxes were barred by the statute of limitations, and the remaining claims failed due to failure to perform a condition precedent. AFFIRMED IN PART, REVERSED IN PART, AND REMANDED.

Thomas C. Fritzsche, Assistant County Attorney, for appellant.

John T. Flynn of Brubaker, Flynn & Darland, P.C., Davenport, for appellee.

2 CADY, Justice. In this appeal, we must primarily decide if an action by a county treasurer to collect delinquent property taxes is subject to the statute of limitations, and if a tax sale certificate is a condition precedent to such an action when the parcels for which taxes are delinquent consist of machinery and equipment. The district court granted summary

judgment to the taxpayer, and the treasurer appealed. Upon our review, we conclude the action is not barred by the statute of limitations, and a tax sale certificate was not a condition precedent to bringing this action. We affirm the district court in part, reverse in part, and remand for further proceedings. I. Background Facts and Proceedings A-1 Machine & Tool Co. ("A-1") is an Iowa corporation. It owned or leased certain industrial metalworking machinery, which was treated as a taxable real property parcel by the Scott County Assessor from 1989 to 2001. The Scott County Auditor levied taxes on the parcel each of those years. A-1 never paid the taxes. Its president, Alvin Roggenkamp,

claimed the corporation never received any tax bills or notices that taxes were owed. The taxes were deemed delinquent by the Scott County

Treasurer, Bill Fennelly (the "Treasurer"). He eventually obtained a tax sale certificate for the taxes from 1989 to 1996, but did not obtain a certificate for the taxes from 1997 to 2001. The Treasurer did not file an action to collect the delinquent taxes until July 18, 2003. At that time, he filed a petition in district court to recover a personal judgment against A-1 under Iowa Code section 445.3 (2003). A-1 answered the petition and alleged a variety of defenses to the claim. These defenses included: (1) the property composing the taxed

3 parcel was personal property, not real property, and thus the Treasurer could not collect taxes on the parcel; 1 (2) a personal judgment
Iowa, all real property not exempt is subject to property tax. Iowa Code

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