Justia Real Estate & Property Law Opinion Summaries

In 1992, Robert Farmer and his wife, Kathy, bought Wolverine Lodge in Glennallen from Peggy Jo Watson. The purchase price of $365,000 was secured by a deed of trust on the property. Farmer defaulted on the mortgage for the first time in 1996, but he cured before the foreclosure sale occurred. In 2012 Farmer defaulted again. Farmer was almost five months late on the payments, had not paid the real estate taxes or room taxes, and had no insurance on the property. Watson paid all of these expenses herself in order to keep the property up-to-date and insured. She testified that "Farmer promised many times that he would bring the loan current and obtain insurance,” but “[h]e never did." In March 2012 Watson commenced nonjudicial foreclosure proceedings. Watson’s attorney recorded a notice of default and a notice of sale, and distributed them to Farmer by mail and personal service. Notice of the nonjudicial foreclosure sale was published in the Alaska Journal of Commerce and posted at various locations in Anchorage. The nonjudicial foreclosure sale was postponed six times. It was initially set for July 25, but Watson postponed it until August 29. On August 28 Farmer filed for Chapter 13 bankruptcy, and Watson again postponed the sale, this time at Farmer’s request, until September 26. Because of the ensuing automatic bankruptcy stay, the sale was postponed until October 31, then until November 28, then again until December 19, and finally until December 27, when the sale actually took place. Watson’s attorney was the only attendee at each of the scheduled sales. Each of these postponements was announced publicly on the sale date, and the trustee signed the notice of postponement every time. Farmer was not otherwise notified of any of the postponements, and, at the time of the actual sale, he alleged that neither "[he], [his] wife, nor [his] bankruptcy attorney knew . . . that a deed of trust foreclosure sale was scheduled for December 27, 2012." Farmer argued that equity required re-notice after each postponement and that the lack of re-notice violated his due process rights. The superior court granted summary judgment to Watson. Upon review, the Supreme Court affirmed: equity does not require re-notice after postponement of a nonjudicial foreclosure sale and notice of a postponement by public announcement satisfies due process.View "Farmer v. Alaska USA Title Agency, Inc." on Justia Law

Appellant Friends of Pennsylvania Leadership Charter School appealed an order of the Commonwealth Court which held that the retroactive real estate tax exemption provided in Section 1722-A(e)(3) of the Public School Code, 24 P.S. 17-1722-A(e)(3), was unconstitutional. Upon review, the Supreme Court affirmed (though by different reasoning), concluding that retroactive application of the real estate tax exemption of Section 1722-A(e)(3) was unconstitutional under the Pennsylvania Constitution because it violated the separation of powers doctrine.View "Friends of PaLCS v. Chester Cty Bd of Assess" on Justia Law

In 2009, the Newtown Township Board of Supervisors enacted a Planned Residential Development Ordinance. This appeal centered on challenges to the validity of that ordinance and to the approval of a Tentative PRD Plan pursuant to it. Intervenors BPG Real Estate Investors (BPG) submitted an application under the anticipated PRD Ordinance for approval of a Tentative PRD Plan, proposing multi-use development of an approximately 218-acre tract of land that it owned. The Township Board orally approved BPG's Tentative PRD Plan, and later issued a written decision granting approval. Newtown Square East, L.P. (NSE), which owned a two-acre tract of land adjacent to BPG's tract, filed a challenge to the validity of the PRD Ordinance with the Newtown Township Zoning Hearing Board, and filed an appeal of the Township Board's approval of BPG's Tentative PRD Plan with the court of common pleas. With regard to its validity challenge before the Zoning Board, NSE argued, inter alia, that the PRD Ordinance violated Article VII of the MPC by, allegedly, failing to require that a tentative plan identify the uses of buildings and other structures, and permitting the location of buildings to be subject to free modification between the time of tentative plan approval and final plan approval. Following several hearings, the Zoning Board upheld the validity of the PRD Ordinance, finding that its minor textual variations from the relevant provisions of the MPC, Article VII, did not create an inconsistency or conflict with the enabling legislation. Finding no reversible error, the Supreme Court affirmed the validity of the ordinance. View "Newtown Square East v. Twp. of Newtown" on Justia Law

The primary question this case presented for the Supreme Court's review was whether a municipal authority could exercise its eminent domain powers to condemn an easement over privately-owned land, where the sole purpose of the easement is to supply a private developer with land to install sewer drainage facilities needed for a proposed private residential subdivision. "While this determination may seem to interfere with the ability of municipal water and/or sewer authorities to expand their operations under circumstances where, as here, there is an overarching nexus between the taking and private development, it is not this Court’s function to ameliorate such difficulties by departing from the statutory text. [. . .] The Legislature’s decision to exempt regulated public utilities, but not municipal authorities, from the preclusive rule set forth in Section 204(a) demonstrates that it intended to allow – within constitutional limitations – the continued use of eminent domain for the provision of public services such as water and sewer access in tandem with private development for a limited, defined class of condemnors. As RAWA is not within that class, its condemnation of the drainage easement is in violation of PRPA." View "Reading Area Wat Auth v. Schuyl River Grwy, et al" on Justia Law

The United States District Court for the Western District of Washington certified a question of Washington law to the Washington Supreme Court. The issue centered on whether Washington law recognized a cause of action for monetary damages where a plaintiff alleges violations of the deeds of trust act (DTA), chapter 61.24 RCW, but no foreclosure sale has been completed. The Supreme Court was also asked to articulate the principles that would apply to such a claim under the DTA and the Consumer Protection Act (CPA), chapter 19.86 RCW. The Court held that the DTA does not create an independent cause of action for monetary damages based on alleged violations of its provisions where no foreclosure sale has been completed. The answer to the first certified question was no-at least not pursuant to the DT A itself. Furthermore, the Court found that under appropriate factual circumstances, DTA violations may be actionable under the CPA, even where no foreclosure sale has been completed. The answer to the second certified question was that the same principles that govern CPA claims generally apply to CPA claims based on alleged DTA violations. View "Frias v. Asset Foreclosure Servs., Inc." on Justia Law

Neighbor and owner of property near the Palmer Municipal Airport brought an inverse condemnation claim against the City of Palmer, arguing that the airport operation diminished his property value. The superior court entered summary judgment for the City of Palmer because the property owner failed to submit any expert testimony regarding damages. The Supreme Court reversed the superior court's decision because Alaska law permits property owners to testify about their opinion of the property's value before and after an alleged taking. View "Briggs v. City of Palmer" on Justia Law

Petitioners sought a petition for a writ of mandate compelling the trial court to vacate its order sustaining without leave to amend a demurrer to their two causes of action for financial elder abuse under the Elder Abuse and Dependent Adult Civil Protection Act, Welf. & Inst. Code 15600 et seq. At issue was whether to allege a "taking" of a property right under the Act, it is sufficient to plead that an elder has entered into an unconsummated agreement which, in effect, significantly impairs the value of the elder's property, or whether the Act requires that the agreement have been performed and title have been conveyed. The court concluded that because property rights include, among other things, the right to use and sell property, petitioners' allegations that Petitioner Bounds entered into an executory agreement which significantly impaired the value of the property owned by the Trust adequately pleads a taking - that Bounds has been deprived of a property right by means of an agreement within the meaning of section 15610.30(c). Accordingly, the court granted the petition and issued the writ compelling the trial court to vacate its order sustaining the demurrer to petitioners' financial elder abuse claims.View "Bounds v. Super. Ct." on Justia Law

El Dorado, a mobile home park owner located in the City of Fillmore alleged that the City interfered with an application for a subdivision of its seniors-only mobile home park by causing unreasonable delays and imposing extralegal conditions because of a fear that subdivisions would lead to El Dorado opening the Park to families. El Dorado's complaint was dismissed for lack of standing. The court concluded, however, that El Dorado had Article III standing where El Dorado suffered a concrete and particularized, actual, injury, in the form of added expenses caused by the City's interference of the application. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded for further proceedings.View "El Dorado Estates v. City of Fillmore" on Justia Law

Respondent, the City of Concord (City) appealed a superior court decision granting summary judgment in favor of petitioner Northern New England Telephone Operations, LLC d/b/a FairPoint Communications - NNE (FairPoint), in its equal protection challenge to the City’s taxation of FairPoint’s use and occupation of public property, and striking the tax levied against FairPoint. In order to provide telecommunications services throughout the City, FairPoint maintained poles, wires, cables, and other equipment within the City’s public rights-of-way. For the 2000 to 2010 tax years, the City imposed a real estate tax upon FairPoint for its use and occupation of this public property. Prior to 2010, the City did not impose a right-of-way tax upon Comcast, which used the City’s rights-of-way to provide cable services pursuant to a franchise agreement. The City began imposing the tax upon Comcast in 2010 in response to a ruling by the New Hampshire Board of Tax and Land Appeals (BTLA) that, notwithstanding the franchise agreement, Comcast was subject to the tax. Prior to 2008, the City did not impose the same tax upon Public Service of New Hampshire (PSNH) because it was unaware that PSNH had used and occupied the rights-of-way. Similarly, the City did not tax certain other users of its rights-of-way for their use and occupation of public property during the relevant tax years because it was not aware of their usage. FairPoint brought an action challenging, in relevant part, the constitutionality of the City’s right-of-way tax assessments against it for the 2000 through 2010 tax years. The parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. In granting FairPoint’s motion, and denying the City’s motion, the trial court ruled, as an initial matter, that "intentionality" was not a required element of FairPoint’s equal protection claim. Upon review, the Supreme Court concluded that FairPoint’s equal protection claim was one of "selective enforcement," and not an equal protection challenge to the tax scheme itself. Thus, because the trial court applied an erroneous legal standard in ruling that the City selectively imposed the tax upon FairPoint, the Court vacated the trial court’s rulings and remanded for further proceedings. View "Northern New England Telephone Operations, LLC v. City of Concord" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs allege that they hold land patents, issued by the federal government before Alaska entered the Union, giving title to certain Alaska streambeds. In 2010- 2011, the Alaska Department of Natural Resources determined that the waterways above these streambeds were navigable in 1959, the year Alaska was admitted to the Union, and remain navigable. Under the Submerged Lands Act of 1953, all land beneath such waterways belongs to the state, 43 U.S.C. 1311(a). Plaintiffs argue that Alaska’s determination that the waterways have been navigable since 1959 does not disturb the title to the land that was granted to them and that, under the Act, streambeds that had already been patented by the federal government were not granted to Alaska upon its statehood. The district court dismissed Plaintiffs’ declaratory judgment action for lack of subject matter jurisdiction. The Ninth Circuit affirmed. Alaska has a sufficient interest in the lands to assert Eleventh Amendment immunity. Plaintiffs’ action was “close to the functional equivalent” of a quiet title action; the lands at issue are submerged lands beneath navigable waters, which have a “unique status in the law” insofar as “[s]tate ownership of them has been considered an essential attribute of sovereignty.”View "Lacano Invs., LLC v. Sullivan" on Justia Law