After a drainage district has been established and the order therefor filed with the county drain commissioner, a petition to locate, establish and construct a drain may be filed with the commissioner having jurisdiction of the lands designated in such order as constituting the drainage district. Such petition shall ask for the location, establishment and construction of the drain or drains, or any part thereof, as described in said order. The petition shall be signed by a number of freeholders in said drainage district whose lands would be liable to an assessment for benefits, equal to 1/2 the number of freeholders whose lands would be traversed by the drain or drains applied for or abut on any highway or street along the side of which such drain extends, between the point where such drain enters such highway and the point where it leaves such highway and which lands are within the drainage district. Such petition shall be accompanied by a description of the land in said district owned by each signer and by a certificate of the county treasurer as to payment of taxes and special assessments against such lands. Such certificate shall be in substantially the following form:

    I hereby certify that there are no taxes or special assessments unpaid against any of the lands described in the annexed list according to the records of the county treasurer’s office for the past 3 years, except as follows:

Description	Year	Tax or assessment	Amount
………….	………..	………………….	………

The name of any signer as to whose land such certificate shows taxes or assessments unpaid for 3 years shall not be counted. The eligibility of the signers to such petition shall be determined by the commissioner according to their interest of record in the office of the register of deeds in the probate court or the circuit court of the county in which such lands are situated at the time such petition is filed. In determining the number of owners whose lands are traversed by such drain, or abut thereon as hereinbefore prescribed, the drain commissioner shall investigate the records of the register of deeds, of the probate court and of the circuit court of the county, and shall make diligent inquiry in the community, including inquiry of anyone in possession of all of such lands so traversed or so abutting as to the ownership thereof. In lieu of a petition signed by freeholders as aforesaid, the petition may be signed solely by a city, village or township when duly authorized by its governing body, or by any combination of such municipalities, if such petitioning municipality or municipalities will be liable to assessments at large for at least a percentage of the total amount to be assessed for the cost of the proposed drain. In the event of such a municipally signed petition, then the foregoing provisions of this section, other than the first 2 sentences thereof, shall not be applicable.