TITLE IX. office, to authorize an attorney or other person to appear for § 2. No deed of cession of any street or parts of streets, To examine avenues, lanes, roads or parks shall be accepted by the said titles, etc. common council until the title to the parties ceding the lands on the same shall have been examined and ascertained by the said attorney and counsellor, and shall report to the common council such fact in writing; the fees and expenses thereof to be paid by the arties executing the deed of cession, which said fees and expenses shall be paid into the treasury for the use of the city. fines, etc. § 3. It shall be the duty of the attorney and counsel to To commence commence all actions for fines, damages and penalties for actions for the violation of any provisions of this act, or of any of the ordinances of the city of Brooklyn. All moneys collected or received by him in any such action he shall, on the same day that he receives them, pay over to the treasurer. 9. Review of. 10. Errors, rectification of. 11. Apportionment of tax to be made on application of parties interested. 12. Right of action to recover for taxes paid by mistake. 18. Refunding duplicate payments. 14. Redemption in case of separate interests. 15. Proceedings in case of assessments void for irregularity. 16. Expense and damages-Payment of in certain cases. SECTION 1. There shall be a department of assessment, to consist of a president and nine assessors, who shall consti- Assessors. tute the board of assessors of the city of Brooklyn. of. 2. Within twenty days after the passage of this act, the comptroller and auditor of the city of Brooklyn shall appointment meet in the comptroller's office and appoint a proper person to be president of the board of assessors, and three as * Common Council authorized to fix salary, Laws of 1877, Chap. 469. TITLE X. Terms of office of. Salary. Powers of board of. Ward maps. Assessments, lots how designated in. re sessors, who together with the six assessors in office on the first day of May, eighteen hundred and seventy-three, shall constitute the board of assessors. The assessors in office on the first day of May, eighteen hundred and seventythree, shall serve out the terms for which they were spectively appointed. The term of office of the president and all assessors hereafter appointed shall be three years from the time of their appointment, and until their successors shall have qualified. All appointments to fill vacancies occurring in the board of assessors, after the passage of this act, shall be made by the mayor with the consent of the board of aldermen. The president shall be the head of the said department; he shall preside at all meetings of the board, and in his absence the assessors may appoint a president pro tempore. The salary of the president shall be five thousand dollars, and that of each assessor four thousand dollars per annum.* The said assessors shall make out the assessment lists and rolls for local improvements and taxes, and perform such other duties as may be required of them under the direction of the president. § 3. Said board of assessors shall have power, and it shall be their duty, to make all assessments for taxes and local improvements, except for sewers in the city of Brooklyn in the manner by this act or other laws provided, and all provisions of law now applicable to the assessors of Brooklyn, or towns in this State, in relation to assessments for taxes in said city, are hereby declared to apply to the assessors to be appointed under this act. The ward maps made, or to be made, shall continue to be in the custody of said board of assessors, and all assessments shall refer to said maps, except in cases where they do not exist; and where a portion of any lot of land laid down on said maps shall be taken for any improvement, the residue shall be deemed liable to be assessed for such improvement; and land occupied by a person other than the reputed owner may be assessed in the name of the occupant. § 4. In all assessments of lands and tenements hereafter to be made, whether for benefits from local improvements, or the opening, widening and extending of streets, avenues, squares, parks and places, also for water rates, in addition to the known street numbers, if there be any, the same ward or block numbers shall be used to designate the lots as are or may be used to designate them in assessments for taxes, and no other numbers shall be necessary, except where no ward or block numbers exist. In case ward maps do not exist for any ward or wards, or portions thereof, * Common Council authorized to fix salaries, Laws of 1877, chap. 469. the common council shall, as soon as they shall deem it advisable, cause the same to be made. In every assessment for a local improvement, there shall be added two per cent for assessors' fees for the benefit of the city. TITLE X. ruled. § 5. There shall be ruled in the yearly assessment rolls, Rolls, how for taxes in each ward, five additional columns, which shall he headed respectively as follows, namely, "amounts received," "cash book, volume folios 99.66 "reductions These columns and cancellations,' notices," in this act. included. § 6. There shall be included in every assessment for local Interest to be improvements hereafter made and confirmed, such amount as may be necessary to re-imburse to the city the interest upon all advances made in executing such improvements; such interest always to be computed to dates three months subsequent to the times of confirmation of such assessments respectively, and the amounts so included in assessments for interest, as well as the amounts collected for interest on assessments, shall be appropriated and applied to the payment of interest on the city bonds issued, on account of the improvements, for which such assessments were levied, and it shall be the duty of the board of assessors, within three months after the amount of an assessment shall have been determined, to apportion the same upon the property benefitted, and to return the lists thereof to the common council for confirmation. property, value determined. § 7. In determining the value of personal property to be Personal assessed for taxes, the assessors shall have the power to ex- of how amine, upon oath, every person whom they shall believe ought to be assessed for such property, and shall also have power to examine, under oath, such other persons, as witnesses, in relation thereto, as they may deem proper, and for that purpose may administer oaths and issue process to compel the attendance of witnesses before them. Any person who shall refuse to make, under oath, a full disclosure of all the facts necessary to enable the assessors to make a fair and just assessment of his or her personal property, when duly called upon by the assessors to do so, or to answer such questions as may be put to him or her in relation thereto, shall be assessed a gross sum, which in their judg ment will be to the full amount of his personal estate, and shall forfeit for one year all the rights and privileges given by this act, or by the laws for the assessment and collection of taxes to persons aggrieved by erroneous or excessive assessments. It shall be the duty of the board of assessors to cause circular notices to be sent through the post TITLE X. Assessment, when to be completed. Review of. Errors, rectification of office, or otherwise, to all persons and corporations assessed by them for personal property, stating therein the amount assessed, also the time during which and the place where applications may be made for the correction of such assessments, if the same be erroneous. All such notices shall have printed on them the provisions of this act relating to assessments of personal property. § 8. They shall make up and complete, by the first day of June in each year, their valuations of taxable property in the several wards, as estimated and assessed by them, and the assessed valuations of real and personal estate so made shall be entered in detail in books kept by said board, called "Annual record of the assessed valuations of real and personal estate," which books shall be kept open for examination and correction until the first day of July, when they shall be closed. During the time said books shall be open, said assessors shall give due notice thereof as required by law, and during that time application may be made by any person aggrieved by the assessed valuation of his or her real or personal estate to have the same corrected. In case such application be made in relation to the valuation of real estate, it must be in writing, stating the ground of objection thereto. If in relation to personal property, the applicant shall be examined upon oath. § 9. It shall be the duty of the said assessors to attend during such examination, and review and to inake corrections in the descriptions of property and in the assessed valuations thereof, if in their judgment the same are erroneous. The said assessors shall cause to be prepared from the said "books of annual record," after the same shall have been duly corrected, assessment rolls or tax books for each ward of said city respectively, which shall be duly sworn to by at least two of the assessors, according to the oath provided by law in regard to assessment rolls in the different towns of this State, and further, to the effect that they have together personally examined, within the year past each and every lot or parcel of land, house, building or other accessible property, and such assessment rolls or tax books shall, on or before the first day of August, be delivered to the board of supervisors of Kings county, which board shall proceed thereon in the manner required by law for the laying and collection of taxes. § 10. The board of assessors shall have power to rectify any errors committed in the laying of any tax or assessment, as well for general purposes as for any local improvement, only in the following cases: 1. When the error is entirely clerical. 2. When there is a mistake in the name of the party taxed or assessed. 3. When the quantity of the real estate, or nature of the buildings and improvements thereon shall be erroneously given. 4. When the personal estate shall be over-estimated, and the party assessed shall have been prevented from inspecting the assessment rolls, by sickness or absence from the city, during the said time the same were open for examination and correction. 5. When the property has been assessed that was by law exempt from tax, at the time the assessment was laid. Such power shall be exercised only upon satisfactory proof of error, but no correction shall be valid until it shall have been certified to by the comptroller, and the collector of taxes and assessments, and duly entered, in red ink, in the assessment list or lists in the department of collection. TITLE X. made on interested § 11. If a sum of money in gross has been or shall be Apportionment taxed for general purposes, or assessed for any city im- of tax to be provement upon any lands or premises, any person or per- application of sons claiming to be interested in any divided or undivided parties part thereof, may pay such part of the said sum, also of the interest and charges due or charged thereon, as the board of assessors may deem and certify to be just and equitable, and the remainder of the sum of money so taxed or assessed, together with the interest and charges, shall be a lien upon the residue of the lands and premises only, which may be sold according to law to satisfy the residue of such assessment, tax, interest and charges, in the same manner as though the residue of said assessment and tax had been imposed upon the residue of said lands or premises. It shall be the duty of the said board of assessors to make any such appointment upon application by any person interested, accompanied by a diagram of the property, showing the true limits and extent of the interest of such applicant, and all such apportointments shall be recorded in the office of said board, and also noted in red ink on the assessment rolls or assessment registers in the department of collection or in the department of arrears. Right of action § 12. Any person who shall, by reason of any mistake by himself or his agent, pay a tax or assessment for water to recover for taxes paid by rates or for benefit upon real estate belonging to another mistake. person or persons, shall have a right of action to recover in |