CHAP. 221.—An ACT for the relief of tax-payers in assessment
district, No. 2, in Botetourt county, against erroneous assess-
ments.

Approved February 15, 1892.

Whereas, from satisfactory evidence, it appears that the
assessors of lands for the lower district, or district num-
ber two, of Botetourt county, for the year eighteen hun-
dred and ninety, failed, owing to sickness and other causes,
to make return of his assessments at the time required by
section four hundred and forty-three of the code of Vir
ginia, and did not, in fact, make guch returns to the clerk’s
office of said county until in January, eighteen hundred
and ninety-one, after the time had elapsed wherein, as is
provided in section four hundred and forty-four of the
code of Virginia, any person feeling himself aggrieved by
the assessment of his lands or lots might apply to the
county court to have such assessment corrected, by reason
whereof, in cases where erroneous assessments have been
made in said district, the county court has been unable to
grant application for correction; therefore,

1. Be it enacted by the general assembly of Virginia,
That any person feeling himself aggrieved by the assess-
ment of his lands or lots for the year eighteen hundred
and ninety in the lower district, or district number two,of
Botetourt county, may, upon giving notice to the assessor
and to the attorney for the commonwealth, apply to the
county court of Botetourt county, at any time within three
months from the passage of this act, and not after, to have
the assessment of his lands or lots corrected, which notice
shall be in writing, and shall have appended thereto an
affidavit of the owner, or his duly authorized agent, that, in
the opinion of the affiant, the assessment of his lands or
lots is above what the true value thereof was at the time
such assessment ought to have been made. The attorney
for the commonwealth shall defend the application, and if
the court shall be satisfied that the assessment was too
high, it shall reduce the same to what, in its opinion, was
the true value of such lands or lots at the time such assess-
ment ought to have been made; but if it shall be of the
opinion that the assessment was too low, then it shall
increase it in like manner, and such application shall have
precedence over all other causes pending in said court;
but no costs shall be taxed against the applicant or the
commonwealth.

2. Where the assessment is changed by order of the
court, pursuant to the foregoing section, taxes for the year
eighteen hundred and ninety-one, and for every year there-
after until a new assessment is made, shall be extended
upon the basis of the assessment 30 fixed.

8. Section four hundred and forty-four of the code of
Virginia, eighteen hundred and eighty-seven, so far as it
is in conflict with this act, is hereby repealed.

4. This act shall be in force from its passage.