Texas Attorney General Opinion: JM-1262 Page: 4 of 5
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Honorable Dale Hanna - Page 4 (JM-1262)
You suggest in the brief accompanying your request that
it might be argued that an amendment to article 1577 in
1953, subsequent to the Edwards court's consideration of
those provisions, by specifically providing for the method
of giving notice of sale at auction of county real estate,
implicitly precludes the county from additionally paying a
finder's fee to a real estate agent for finding a purchaser.
in Acts 1953, 53rd Leg., ch. 133, at 447.4
The 1953 amendment's addition of details to the auction
requirement of the provision does not alter the import of
the Edwaras case: despite the auction requirement, the
county is not precluded from paying a finder's fee to
someone for finding a person to buy the property at the
auction, if all other legal requirements are met. Where a
power, here the power to sell property at auction, is
conferred on the commissioners court, the commissioners
court has broad discretion, within constitutional and
statutory parameters, in its exercise of the power so
conferred. s Canales v. Lauahlin, 214 S.W.2d 451 (Tex.
1948).
We conclude, therefore, that a commissioners court may,
if all other legal requirements are met, pay a finder's fee
to a real estate agent who finds a buyer for county real
property sold at auction pursuant to section 263.001, Local
Government Code. We caution again that we do not here
either approve or disapprove payment of the particular
finder's fee, the issue of the payment of which you say
prompted your request. The question of whether the county
(Footnote Continued)
theory. Edwards' brief quote from the Sluder opinion
included the portion thereof stating that it would be unjust
to permit the city there "to interpose the defense that it
should not be required to pay for [benefits received]
because the contract was not made in the particular form
required by the city charter." (Emphasis ours.) The defect
in the contract in Sluder was that it had been executed by
the mayor alone and not provided for by ordinance of the
city council as the city charter required. jeg Sluder at
841. By implication, the finder's fee contract in Edwards
as well, was one which it would have been within the
authority of the county to make had applicable legal
requirements been met.
4. Article 1577 was codified, without substantive
change, in 1987 as Local Government Code section 263.001.
The section includes, as subsection (b), the provisions
added by the 1953 amendement. Acts 1987, 70th Leg., ch.
149, at 1035.p. 6746
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Texas. Attorney-General's Office. Texas Attorney General Opinion: JM-1262, text, December 18, 1990; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth273700/m1/4/?q=%22%22~1: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.