Justia Real Estate & Property Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff Fat Bullies Farm, LLC (Fat Bullies), and the counterclaim defendants, Donald Gould and Peter Simmons, appealed certain superior court findings and rulings made during the course of litigation with defendants Alan and Donna Perkins and Lori and Bret Devenport, involving the sale of a 3.1 acre horse farm in North Hampton known as Runnymede Farm. When the Devenports purchased the property in 1998, they promised to operate it as a horse farm in perpetuity, and to allow the former owner to maintain an office on site. Simmons told the Devenports that he was interested in purchasing the property. The Devenports told Simmons they would only sell if the buyer agreed to the horse farm and on site office conditions. Simmons spoke with Gould about purchasing the property jointly with the intent to develop and/or resell it. The two created Fat Bullies “for the purpose of acquiring real estate for development or resale.” After amendments to the purchase contract, the Devenports reiterated that they would sell the property only if Fat Bullies committed to operating it as a horse farm. Despite their intentions to develop the property, Simmons and Gould agreed. The parties executed a sales agreement. No payment had been made on the property; word got back to Lori Devenport that Simmons had talked to others in North Hampton about purchasing the farm. The Devenports rescinded the agreement, believing Simmons lied to them about promising to operate Runnymede as a horse farm. Fat Bullies invoked an option, but the Devenports refused to sell. In 2011, the Devenports sold Runnymede to the Perkinses. After trial, the jury returned a verdict in favor of the Devenports on Fat Bullies’ breach of contract claim, finding that Fat Bullies failed to prove the existence of a contract by a preponderance of the evidence, and a verdict in favor of Fat Bullies, Simmons, and Gould on the Devenports’ fraudulent inducement claim. The New Hampshire Supreme Court reversed the trial court with respect to a Consumer Protection Act violation decision; the Court reversed with respect to attorney fees related to that Act decision. The Court affirmed in all other respects, and remanded for further proceedings. View "Fat Bullies Farm, LLC v. Devenport" on Justia Law

Petitioner Kadle Properties Revocable Realty Trust (Trust), challenged the dismissal of the Trust’s appeal to the New Hampshire Board of Tax and Land Appeals (BTLA), filed after respondent, the City of Keene (City), denied the Trust’s application for an educational use tax exemption. The Trust owned property in Keene that included an office building. A separate, for-profit corporation, Config Systems, Incorporated (Config Systems), rented a portion of the Trust’s office building, where it offered computer classes. The Trust did not own or operate Config Systems, but Daniel Kadle, in addition to serving as trustee for the Trust, was a beneficiary of the Trust and the sole shareholder of Config Systems. The Trust sought the exemption based upon Config Systems’s use of part of the property as a school. The Trust appealed the City’s denial of its request to the BTLA. During the BTLA hearing on the Trust’s appeal, the City moved to dismiss the appeal. The BTLA granted the City’s motion, reasoning that the property owner, the Trust, was not a school, and that Config Systems, the entity operating the school which the Trust claims qualified the property for an exemption, did not own the property. Finding no reversible error in that decision, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Appeal of Kadle Properties Revocable Realty Trust" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Robert Jesurum was a resident of Rye since 1990. Defendants WBTSCC Limited Partnership and William H. Binnie, trustee of the Harrison Irrevocable Trust, owned property located on Wentworth Road in Rye, the majority of which was used as a golf course. At issue in this case was a small, parabolic-shaped area on the northeastern corner of the defendants’ property, referred to by the trial court as “Sanders Point.” Wentworth Road abutted the property’s northern border. To the southeast, Sanders Point connected to Little Harbor Beach via a five-foot wide sandy walking path. Little Harbor Beach was on an inlet to the Atlantic Ocean and formed the southeastern border of the golf course. In the 1990s, usage of Sanders Point increased. Tensions between the public and the defendants rose concomitantly with the increase in the public’s use of Sanders Point. In 2013, plaintiff brought this action seeking, among other things, a declaratory judgment that both the plaintiff and the public had the right to a prescriptive easement over Sanders Point for parking and to access Little Harbor Beach. Both sides moved for summary judgment. The trial court granted the plaintiff’s motion for summary judgment and denied defendants’ motion, ruling that the public possessed a prescriptive easement over Sanders Point. The trial court did not, however, determine the scope of the public’s easement rights because the parties had not briefed that issue. Instead, the court scheduled a hearing on the “scope” issue, which was held in June 2015. Following the hearing, the court ruled that the public was entitled to use Sanders Point to park and to access Little Harbor Beach, subject to certain restrictions. Defendants appealed. The Supreme Court affirmed in part and reversed in part, finding that the trial court erred in its award of attorney’s fees to plaintiff. The Court affirmed the trial court in all other respects. View "Jesurum v. WBTSCC, L.P." on Justia Law

Petitioner, the New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority (NHHFA), appealed a superior court decision to grant summary judgment in favor of respondent Pinewood Estates Condominium Association (Pinewood), and to award attorney’s fees to Pinewood. The trial court ruled that, pursuant to Pinewood’s condominium declaration, NHHFA was responsible for paying condominium assessments that were accrued by the previous owner of a unit NHHFA purchased at a foreclosure sale, and that Pinewood was not obligated to provide common services to the unit until all assessments were paid. Because the Supreme Court concluded that the Condominium Act, RSA chapter 356-B (2009 & Supp. 2015), operated to bar Pinewood’s claim for unpaid pre-foreclosure condominium assessments, it reversed and remanded. View "New Hampshire Housing Finance Authority v. Pinewood Estates Condominium Association" on Justia Law

Plaintiff Maher Mahmoud appealed a superior court order granting defendants Winwin Properties, LLC (Winwin), Gary T. Shulman, Anita S. Shulman, Aaron Katz, and Jeremy Gavin's motion for summary judgment, and denying plaintiff’s cross-motion for summary judgment. Plaintiff acquired title to an approximately 17-acre parcel of land in Thornton, and subsequently received subdivision approval from the Thornton Planning Board to create Lot 1, a 1.06-acre parcel; he recorded the subdivision as Plan 11808 at the Grafton County Registry of Deeds (registry of deeds). In July 2006, plaintiff mortgaged Lot 1 to Mortgage Electronic Registration Systems, Inc. (MERS) by mortgage deed, recorded in the registry of deeds. The mortgage deed described the property as Lot 1 as depicted on Plan 11808. Plaintiff received approval from the Thornton Planning Board to further subdivide the 17-acre parcel into a total of eight lots; he recorded the subdivision as Plan 12600 at the registry of deeds. As part of this subdivision approval, the southerly boundary of Lot 1 was relocated. Plan 12600 showed both the original Lot 1 lot line and the new southerly lot line, and shows Lot 1 as consisting of 2.40 acres. Plaintiff ultimately defaulted on his loan, and MERS foreclosed on Lot 1. MERS conveyed Lot 1, pursuant to a foreclosure deed under power of sale to defendant Bank of New York, as Trustee for the Certificate Holders CWABS, Inc. Asset-Backed Certificates, Series 2006-15 (Bank of New York). Then Bank of New York conveyed Lot 1 to Winwin by quitclaim deed. The deed from the Bank of New York to Winwin included the same description as that contained in the mortgage deed, with the additional phrase, “[s]ubject to any and all matters, including setbacks if any, as shown on Plan No. 11808 and Plan No. 12600 recorded in [the registry of deeds].” Winwin conveyed the property in May 2009 to defendants Gary and Anita Shulman, and the Shulmans conveyed the property in April 2014 to defendants Aaron Katz and Jeremy Gavin. In 2015, plaintiff sued defendants, asserting several claims relating to the size of Lot 1. Winwin moved for summary judgment on plaintiff’s petition to quiet title to Lot 1, asserting that it had previously held record title to the lot, which included the approximately 1.34 acres added to Lot 1 by the lot line adjustment (the disputed land), because the description of the property in the mortgage deed included any additions to the land. After review, the New Hampshire Supreme Court found no reversible error in the superior court's grant of defendants' summary judgment, and affirmed. View "Mahmoud v. Town of Thornton" on Justia Law

This case centered on defendants’ alleged entitlement to travel across several properties in Salem in order to access Route 28. Defendants owned the property located at 16 Garabedian Drive, and claimed to have a deeded right-of-way to travel from their property eastward, across State-owned railroad tracks and continuing across the southernmost section of two parcels of land owned by Cumberland Farms, Inc. and 392 South Broadway, LLC respectively. The Cumberland Farms property abutted the railroad on its western boundary and 392 South Broadway’s property to the southeast. 392 South Broadway’s property was bounded on the north and west by the Cumberland Farms property and Route 28 on the east. Travel across these properties is known as Cuomo Drive. Plaintiffs 412 South Broadway Realty, LLC and Salem Rockingham, LLC, which owned property located just to the south of Cuomo Drive, filed suit against defendants and Cumberland Farms. Defendants appealed multiple superior court orders ruling that their property was not benefited by a deeded right-of-way over several other properties and finding them liable for abuse of process. Third-party defendant, Emmett Horgan, Trustee of the FUN Trust (FUN Trust), cross-appealed, arguing that the trial court erred in finding that defendants had not committed slander of title and in calculating the damages award for the trust’s abuse of process claim. After review, the Supreme Court vacated the trial court’s judgment on FUN Trust’s abuse of process claim and remanded to the trial court for further proceedings. In all other respects, the trial court’s judgment was affirmed. View "412 South Broadway Realty, LLC v. Wolters" on Justia Law

Seventeen of the 20 plaintiffs to this case were Somali Bantu refugees who were resettled to the United States in 2004. Three of the plaintiffs were born in the United States to Somali Bantu refugees. Plaintiffs lived in the defendants’ apartments during 2005-2006, and those apartments were contaminated by lead paint, a known health hazard. Plaintiffs had elevated levels of lead in their blood. In their complaints, which were consolidated for discovery and trial, plaintiffs, through their parents, alleged that they were injured by their exposure to lead paint while living in defendants’ apartments. In this interlocutory appeal, plaintiffs challenged a superior court order granting the motion to exclude the expert testimony of Peter Isquith, Ph.D. After evaluating the 20 plaintiffs, Isquith, a clinical neuropsychologist, determined that 17 of them suffered from neurological deficits and opined that lead exposure was, more likely than not, a substantial factor in causing those deficits. The superior court excluded Isquith’s testimony based upon its determination that his testimony was not “the product of reliable principles and methods,” and its finding that he did not apply “the principles and methods reliably to the facts” of this case. The superior court certified a question to the Supreme Court: whether the trial court abused its discretion by excluding the expert's testimony. The Supreme Court found no reversible error in the trial court's order, and affirmed. View "Osman v. Lin" on Justia Law

Defendant Eugene Dowgiert appealed a superior court order dismissing his plea of title, which he filed in response to a possessory action brought in the circuit court by plaintiff Bank of New York Mellon, as Trustee. The issue before the Supreme Court was whether the superior court erred in ruling that the plea was time-barred under RSA 479:25, II (Supp. 2015) and RSA 479:25, II-a (2013). After review, the Court held that it did not, and, accordingly, affirmed. View "The Bank of New York Mellon, as Trustee v. Dowgiert" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs, Paul and Sara Lynn, appealed a Superior Court order granting summary judgment to defendant Wentworth By The Sea Master Association (association), and denying summary judgment to plaintiffs. The parties disputed the validity of an easement on the plaintiffs’ property that provided members of the association beach access. Because the Supreme Court concluded that an easement was validly created, it affirmed. View "Lynn v. Wentworth By The Sea Master Association" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs Kathleen Nawn-Benoit and Thomas Benoit appealed a superior court order granting the summary judgment motion filed by defendants Ronald and Rita Delude, and denying plaintiffs’ cross-motion for summary judgment. In July 2014, over the objections of several lot owners in the parties' subdivision, plaintiffs obtained a variance to build a single-family residence on property designated as Common Land in their original 1974 plans. A "Declaration of Covenants" was recorded with the development plan, making all lots in the development subject to the Declaration, and the intention of the Developer to create "open spaces and other common facilities for the benefit of [that] community." In January 2015, plaintiffs brought a petition against the residents of the subdivision seeking: (1) a declaratory judgment that the Declaration was unenforceable; (2) an order that they acquired title to the Common Land “free and clear of the Declaration through adverse possession”; and (3) to the extent that the Declaration was deemed enforceable, an order requiring defendants to form a homeowners' association, purchase the Common Land from plaintiffs “at its fair market value,” and reimburse them for their “out-of-pocket expenses . . . , including real estate taxes.” The trial court concluded that “[b]ecause the undisputed material facts and the applicable law apply equally to the [plaintiffs’] claims asserted against all of the other [defendant]-lot owners, they are likewise entitled to summary judgment.” The court subsequently denied the plaintiffs’ motion for reconsideration. Finding no reversible error in the trial court's judgment, the Supreme Court affirmed. View "Benoit v. Cerasaro" on Justia Law