Property Law Developments—Joseph William Singer

A New Jersey trial court has held that a lender cannot bring a foreclosure action unless it can prove standing to sue. That requires proof that it owns the note and the mortgage giving it the power to foreclose on the property to pay off the debt evidenced by the note. Physical possession of the note is requried at the time the foreclosure action is filed; possession at the time of appeal was not sufficient to allow the foreclosure to go forward. Bank of New York v. Raftogianis, F-7356-09 (N.J. Super. Ct. Ch. Div. 2010).

More and more states are passing statutes prohibiting “transfer fee covenants” which purport to require owners of property to pay a portion of the sales price (or a fixed amount) to the original developer whenever the property is sold. Such provisions were held to be unenforceable restraints on alienation in the 1852 New York Court of Appeals case De Peyster v. Michael, 6 N.Y. 467 (1852), a case that is apparently not well known to those peddling these covenants today. De Peyster involved a “quarter sale” clause that required one-fourth of the sale price to go to the heirs of the van Rensselaer family. The court found the arrangement to be a vestige of feudalism akin to quitrents paid to a lord and held that such property relationships had been outlawed in New York by both statute and common law. Recent statutes prohibiting transfer fee covenants (at least prospectively) were passed in Arizona, Minnesota and Utah. 2010 Ariz. Sess. Laws 40; 2010 Minn. Laws 371; Utah Code § 57-1-46.