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Finkton contends that the trial court erred in overruling
his objection to the Auditor’s petition to reissue the tax deed for the
Property. Finkton purports to raise four
arguments, which may be boiled down to two, one legal and one equitable. Finkton’s legal argument is essentially that
his statutory right to redeem the Property, which undisputedly expired in September
2010, was somehow resuscitated by the Treasurer’s erroneous listing of the Property
in the September 2011 tax sale. The flip
side of Finkton’s argument is that the City’s lien on the Property expired or
was somehow extinguished during the course of the proceeding. Finkton cites no relevant authority for
either proposition, and therefore his argument is waived. Triplett v. USX Corp., 893 N.E.2d 1107, 1117
(Ind. Ct. App. 2008),
trans. denied (2009).
Finkton’s equitable argument is that the Auditor should be
estopped from reissuing the tax deed because “the County acted in an arguably
misleading way by putting the Property back in the September 2011 tax sale
thereby leading Finkton to believe that he could get his property back by
paying the delinquency before the sale.”
Appellant’s Br. at 9. This Court has
said that “[e]quitable estoppel applies if one party, through its representations
or course of conduct, knowingly misleads or induces another party to believe
and act upon his or her conduct in good faith and without knowledge of the
facts.” Steuben Cnty. v. Family Dev., Ltd.,
753 N.E.2d 693, 699 (Ind. Ct. App. 2001), trans. denied (2002). “The party claiming estoppel has the burden
to show all facts necessary to establish it.”
Story Bed & Breakfast, LLP v. Brown Cnty. Plan Comm’n, 819 N.E.2d
55, 67 (Ind. 2004). Finkton has failed
to allege, much less establish, that the Treasurer knowingly misled him to
believe that he could redeem the Property after the statutory redemption period
expired in September 2010. Indeed,
it is undisputed that the Property was mistakenly listed for the September 2011
tax sale as the result of a computer coding error. Therefore, we affirm.
