§ 1822.3-5 - Repayment to assignees.

(a) Those persons are assignees, within the meaning of the statutes authorizing the repayment of purchase money, who purchase the land after the entries thereof are completed and take assignments of the title under such entries prior to complete cancellation thereof, when the entries fail of confirmation for reasons contemplated by the law.

(b) Where applications are made by assignees, the applicants must show their right to repayment by furnishing properly authenticated abstracts of title, or the original deeds or instruments of assignment, or certified copies thereof.

(c) In the place of an abstract of title the applicant may furnish a certificate of the recording officer of the county in which the land is situated, showing all alienations or liens affecting title to the land in connection with the entry upon which the claim for repayment is based.

(d) The applicants must also show that they have not been indemnified by their grantors or assignors for the failure of title, and that title has not been perfected in them by their grantors through other sources.

(e) Where there has been a conveyance of the land and the original purchaser applies for repayment, he must show that he has indemnified his assignee or perfected the title in him through another source, or produce a full reconveyance to himself from the last grantee or assignee.

(f) To construe said statutes so as to recognize the assignment or transfer of the mere claim against the United States for repayment of purchase money, or fees and commissions, disconnected from a sale of the land or attempted transfer of title thereto, would be against the settled policy of the Government and repugnant to section 3477 of the Revised Statutes (31 U.S.C. 203). (2 Lawrence, First Comp. Dec. 264, 266, and 6 Dec. Comp. of the Treasury, 334, 359.)

(g) Assignees of land who purchase after entry are, in general, deemed entitled to receive the repayment when the lands are found to have been erroneously sold by the Government. But this rule does not apply to the repayment of double-minimum excesses. (First Comp. Dec. in case of Adrian B. Owens, Copp's Public Land Laws, 1890, vol. 2, p. 1238.)