80:25 Adjournment; Sale by Agent. –
Whenever it shall appear to the selectmen or assessors that the collector of taxes, after having posted his notices of a tax sale, will be unable to conduct the same at the time and place specified in the notices thereof, they shall have the power to appoint one of their number to adjourn the sale for not exceeding 3 days as the collector could do, if present. If the incapacitated collector has a deputy or deputies who have been duly appointed by him and bonded, then any such deputy shall have authority to postpone the sale in like manner. If, at the end of the adjourned period, the tax collector is unable to officiate by reason of illness or other unavoidable cause, the selectmen or assessors may appoint in writing any duly qualified deputy tax collector to conduct the sale and make the statutory return to the register of deeds. If there be no deputy collector qualified to act, the selectmen or assessors may appoint some suitable person to serve as tax sale agent. Such appointee shall be sworn to the faithful performance of his duty which shall be to conduct the sale, receive all money due from the purchasers at the tax sale and to deliver the same to the town or city treasurer, taking his receipt therefor, and to make report of the sale to the register of deeds within 15 days thereafter. No bond shall be required of any person who may be appointed to act as tax sale agent. For the proper discharge of his duties the agent shall be entitled to the fees and charges that the collector would have received if he had conducted said sale and made report thereof to the register of deeds. If said sale is made in a municipality wherein all fees and costs accrue to the town or city, then the sum to be allowed to the tax sale agent for his services shall not be less than the per diem compensation of the tax collector, if he be paid upon a salary basis, nor less than he would have received if employed upon a commission basis. Within 24 hours after a tax sale has been made by a deputy tax collector or a tax sale agent, the selectmen or assessors shall notify the commissioner of revenue administration in writing, of the time and place of said sale, the total amount paid by the town or city and by other purchasers, if any, and the name of the person conducting such sale. An attested copy of their notice to the commissioner of revenue administration shall be delivered by the selectmen or assessors to the deputy collector or agent making such sale. Such person shall thereupon forward said copy of notice, together with his report of the tax sale, to the register of deeds who shall cause the same to be entered as a part of the tax sale record.