Justia Real Estate & Property Law Opinion Summaries

In 2008, Plaintiffs Thomas and Julie Manning purchased a property to which an easement was granted by their predecessors-in-interest to their neighbors, Defendants William Campbell and Naomi Campbell. The Mannings wanted to change or eliminate the then-existing driveway that lead to the Campbell property. When the Campbells would not agree to the change, the Mannings filed suit seeking a declaratory judgment holding that a written agreement between the prior owners of both their and the Campbells' property granted a revocable license. If that failed, they asked for a judgment that held they were entitled to relocate the easement. The district court ruled that the agreement granted an easement and not a revocable license. The parties then tried the right of the Mannings to relocate the easement. The Mannings submitted two proposed relocations of the easement, both of which would change where it connected to the Campbell property. A third proposal would leave the driveway where it was, but reduce its width. The court rejected all three proposals, and the Mannings appealed. Because the easement did not specify the location nor dimension of the easement, the Supreme Court found that the "Mannings [did] not point to any evidence in the record indicating that either the width or the location of the easement has changed since the driveway was initially constructed." Therefore, the district court did not err in rejecting all of the Mannings' proposals and leaving the driveway as it existed.

Burns Holdings, LLC, desired to construct a concrete batch plant in Teton County near the City of Driggs. Burns Holdings applied to the county for a zoning change from C-3 (commercial) to M-1 (light industrial), and the county approved the zoning change on the conditions that Burns Holdings and the county execute a development agreement, that the zoning will revert back to C-3 if the project does not come to fruition, and that Burns Holdings pay the impact area application fee. The city planning and zoning department approved the conditional use permit to increase the height limitation on Burns Holdings’s property to 75 feet. The matter was then sent to the county for its approval. The county scheduled a public hearing. At that hearing, there was confusion as to whether the matter being considered was an appeal from the decision of the city planning and zoning department or a decision for the county to make, and whether the county even had jurisdiction to make the decision because of the terms of an "area of city impact" agreement. The county commissioners ultimately decided that the decision of the city department was merely a recommendation and that the county had the responsibility to decide the CUP application. The CUP was ultimately denied, and Burns Holding appealed. The issue on appeal was the district court's decision that upheld the denial of the conditional use permit. Upon review, the Supreme Court agreed with the district court's conclusion that the zoning requirements could be waived only by variance, not by a conditional use permit.

n 2007, Plaintiff-Respondent Leslie Benz entered into a contract to purchase a townhouse that was to be constructed. The contract required her to make three nonrefundable payments of earnest money, which were to be applied to the purchase price. The property's seller sought a construction loan from Defendant-Appellant D.L. Evans Bank. As security for the loan, the seller executed a deed of trust granting the Bank a lien in the property upon which the townhouse would be constructed. The townhouse was substantially completed when Plaintiff was notified that the seller had filed for bankruptcy. The seller failed to pay construction expenses, and as a result, the closing did not occur as scheduled. Numerous mechanics' and materialmen's liens were filed against the property. Plaintiff negotiated with the seller in an attempt to clear the title and purchase the townhouse. Negotiations broke down, Plaintiff notified the seller that she was rescinding the contract, and demanded the return of the earnest money she paid. When the earnest money was not refunded, Plaintiff sued. The trial court held that Plaintiff's lien which was created in connection with the rescinded contract had priority over a deed of trust that the Bank had in the property. The Supreme Court reversed part of the trial court's judgment that awarded accrued interest from the earnest money, but affirmed the trial court's judgment in favor of Plaintiff.

The issue presented in this case arose in connection with a motion to rank creditors in a suit for executory process. DDS Construction, LLC developed a subdivision in Reserve. To fund that development, DDS obtained various loans from First National Bank. To secure its repayment of those loans, DDS granted First National a "Multiple Indebtedness Mortgage" over individual lots located in the subdivision. One property, Lot 8 Square A, was at the center of this controversy. The district court held a notarial act which cancelled the lot's mortgage could be corrected by an act of correction under La. R.S. 35:2.1 and First National, the lender which erroneously cancelled the mortgage, maintained its rank relative to a subsequent mortgage under the statute's provisions. The court of appeal disagreed, holding that under these facts the subsequent mortgage primed the mortgage by the First National, which must be ranked as of the time of the act of correction. After review, the Supreme Court held that the court of appeal erred and reversed, reinstating the ruling of the district court.

Appellants in this case contended that the district court erred when it determined that an unnamed road in their subdivision was public by common law dedication. Appellants are property owners in Division III of the Sawtelle Mountain Subdivision of Fremont County, Idaho. The Sawtelle Subdivision plat was created and recorded in 1994. Although the C-shaped road does not intrude on any lots in the subdivision, the disputed road straddles two lots, one of which belongs to Appellants Joni Kepler-Fleenor and Kistin Fleenor, and the other of which belongs to Blue Sky Management, LLC. According to Appellants, heavy construction traffic heading into and out of the Stonegate Subdivision was bothersome and was damaging the disputed road. The owners of the road lots installed a berm and a gate to block traffic on the disputed road in 2005, but the County removed it in 2009, believing the disputed road to be public. Because the subdivision plat unambiguously dedicated the road, the Supreme Court affirmed the district court's ruling.

This case arose out of a mortgage foreclosure proceeding involving a residential sale. In the advertisement for the sale, the trustees included an additional condition not found in the mortgage documents or authorized by the Maryland Rules that any successful purchaser at the sale would be required to pay the legal fees of attorneys who would be utilized to review the documents on behalf of the trustees by which they would hold settlement and ultimately convey title. The circuit court and court of special appeals ratified the sale. The Court of Appeals reversed, holding that in the absence of specific authority in the contract of indebtedness or contained in statute or court rule, it is an impermissible abuse of discretion for trustees or the lenders who 'bid in' properties to include the demand for additional legal fees for the benefit of the trustees in the advertisement of sale or in any other way that is in contrary to the duty of trustees to maximize the proceeds of the sales and, moreover, is not in conformance with state or local rules and is against public policy.

Defendant-Appellant Deborah Reichman appealed a judgment that granted Plaintiff-Appellee McKenzie County a prescriptive easement for a road that crosses her land in McKenzie County and dismissed her counterclaim for inverse condemnation. Defendant argued on appeal that the district court erred in granting a prescriptive easement for the road because the court failed to correctly calculate the 20-year period for a prescriptive easement backward from when McKenzie County began the lawsuit in 2006. She argued the County did not clearly and convincingly establish adverse use during that period because the adjacent landowners, including her predecessors in interest, blocked the road for their ranching operations and any public use of the road was not continuous and uninterrupted. Upon review of the district court record, the Supreme Court concluded the district court did not err and affirmed its decisions on the issues Defendant raised on appeal.

After an auction sale was ratified, Respondent David Simard defaulted on his contract to purchase the real property in question. Simard admitted liability for the risk and expense of the initial resale, but when the purchaser at the resale defaulted as well, Simard balked at paying the expense and loss incurred at a second resale. Applying Md. R. Civ. P. 14-305(g), the circuit court held that Simard was liable for the risk and expense of both resales. The court of special appeals reversed, holding that Rule 14-305(g) required that a defaulting purchaser be responsible for only one resale. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that absent special circumstances, a defaulting purchaser at a foreclosure sale of property is liable, under Rule 14-305(g), for only the one resale resulting from his or her default.

Larry DeFoor petitioned to establish title against all the world on a piece of property in Ellijay, Georgia. Appellants, certain descendants of Millie DeFoor, the record title holder, answered the petition and denied its material allegations. The court held that the earlier denial of appellants' motion for summary judgment was harmless or moot because the court found evidence sufficient to support the jury's verdict in favor of Larry; Larry did not need to reside on the property in order to establish adverse possession, he only needed to exercise dominion over it; appellants' assertion that Larry could not "tack" his adverse possession to the adverse possession of his father was without merit; the evidence was sufficient to enable the jury to conclude that Larry met his burden to show ouster; it was not error to grant Larry's first motion in limine which sought to exclude certain evidence; and the trial court did not err in refusing to permit appellants to show that Flint Timber agreed to pay Larry for an easement on the property. Accordingly, the judgment was affirmed.

This case involved a property dispute between the parties over easements and right-of-ways on plaintiffs' property. Defendant contended that the tort claims against it were barred by the two-year statute of limitations and that the declaratory judgment against it was unwarranted. The court held that plaintiffs' common-law tort claims were barred by the applicable two-year statute of limitations and the estoppel effect of the alleged fraudulent concealment ended in December 2002. Because plaintiffs did not file suit until more than two years after this date, their claims were time-barred. The court agreed that claims for declaratory judgment were moot because defendant had removed its cable lines from plaintiffs' properties prior to trial. Accordingly, the court granted defendant's petition for review and reversed the court of appeals' judgment.