Month: March 2021

South Carolina sees new golf course redevelopment issues

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Golf course redevelopment is clearly a hot topic in the real estate industry, and this is my fourth blog on the topic. The first blog discussed the decade-long litigation surrounding two golf courses in Myrtle Beach that eventually allowed for redevelopment despite strenuous objections of neighbors. The second blog discussed the national trend of neighbors objecting to golf course redevelopment on “NIMBY” (not in my back yard) grounds. This blog discusses a golf course closer to home, in Blythewood, The Golf Club of South Carolina at Crickentree.

An article in The State newspaper by Jeff Wilkinson discussed the bankruptcy, foreclosure and eventual planned redevelopment of Crickentree. The article states that E-Capital, the national investment firm that owns the mortgage on the golf course, announced this bad news by email to the neighboring homeowners. A public meeting followed where an attorney for that firm told neighbors that the intent is to subdivide the golf course into small lots and build 450 homes. Basic math would indicate the planned density will be much greater than that in the surrounding neighborhood.

The property had to be purchased through the bankruptcy proceeding and then rezoned in order to accommodate a residential subdivision on property now zoned for recreational use. And, of course, the neighbors are quite concerned about potentials hits on their property values.  

According to Mr. Wilkinson’s article, the Columbia area may suffer from an oversaturation of the market with golf courses. Recently, he said, the former Rawls Creek of Coldstream golf course in Irmo closed, and its owner, the Mungo Homes Co., donated the 116-acre property to the Irmo Chapin Recreation Commission. The commission plans to link the 4.5 miles of cart paths to the Three Rivers Greenway river walks in Columbia and Lexington County. Donating golf courses for recreational purposes avoids possible rezoning and litigation issues that neighbors may raise.

Many golf communities were built in areas with good schools and work opportunities, making them particularly valuable for residential redevelopment. Developers generally do not want to walk away from that value.

So, what prohibits the development of these properties into residential subdivisions? Zoning is one of the challenges. Many golf courses are zoned for commercial uses to accommodate clubhouses, restaurants, pro shops and bars. Some, like Crickentree, are zoned for recreational purposes. But the main stumbling block may be the NIMBY attitude of neighbors. Residents near golf courses prefer that the properties be turned into parks, open spaces and natural preserves.

In the Deerfield Plantation cases in Myrtle Beach, the golf courses and surrounding residential subdivisions were originally developed beginning in the late 1970’s. The plats contained notes to the effect that the streets were dedicated for public use but the golf courses were to be maintained privately and were specifically not dedicated to public use.

The covenants gave the lot owners no rights, property, contractual, or otherwise, in the golf courses. A Property Report that was delivered to all prospective lot purchasers described the costs of golf memberships, which were not included in lot prices, and stated that to be allowed to use the golf courses, members would be required to pay initial dues and annual dues and fees. The real estate agents made it clear during the sales program that the mere purchase of a lot did not give a lot owner any right or entitlement to use the golf courses. The deeds of the lots did not convey any easements or other interests in the golf courses.

One plaintiff, who was also a real estate agent, testified that he was never told the golf courses would operate in perpetuity and that the real estate agents never told other potential purchasers that the golf courses would always exist on the properties.

What caused the golf courses to fail? When the golf courses opened, there were 30 – 40 golf courses in the Myrtle Beach area. By the time the golf courses closed, there were nearly 125 courses. Property taxes in the golf courses increased from $7,800 per year to $90,000 per year.  And then the economy tanked. These three factors have occurred across the country to varying extents.

Now, let’s look at South Carolina law. In one of the Deerfield orders, Thomas J. Wills, Special Referee, examined the law of implied easements in South Carolina. I’m summarizing and eliminating the citations for this brief discussion.  The Order states that implied easements are not favored by the courts in South Carolina and must be strictly construed. The intent of the parties controls the existence and scope of implied easements, and the best evidence of that intent is the recorded documents. While case law in South Carolina is clear that lot owners in subdivisions hold easements in streets shown on plats by which their lots are sold, the order states that this rule does not extend beyond access, which is necessary and expected for residential purposes. Finally, the order states that no implied easements in views, breezes, light or air exist in this state. 

After many years, these Myrtle Beach golf courses will be redeveloped into new residential subdivisions. It may take many years before the Crickentree property will be in a position to be redeveloped. Will we see more of this litigation in South Carolina?  Probably. While the law in South Carolina appears generally to favor redevelopment in these cases, there is no doubt that the facts in some of the situations may give rise to implied easements in adjacent lot owners, even in the face of our law. As long as we have NIMBY attitudes of those who live near defunct golf courses, we will continue to see litigation in this area.

Recently, there has been news that Indian Wells Golf Course in Garden City may be replaced with 488 new homesites in the near future. Founders Group International plans to built 150 duplexes in the area, in addition to single family homes. Stay tuned!

Is “title theft” a thing?

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Can and should a consumer buy protection against title theft?

Several years ago, a real estate lawyer asked whether title insurance companies should offer protection against “title theft”…the protection touted by the companies who routinely advertise their services on the radio. This question prompted us to research the services of those companies and analyze whether title insurance companies should offer the same service.

The advertisers who bombard the airwaves with warnings about title theft say thieves can steal homes by forging the names of homeowners on deeds, then reselling or mortgaging the property to hijack the equity. The thieves would purportedly pocket the proceeds, leaving the homeowner without title or with new mortgage payments. The companies promise to monitor title to protect against such devastating losses.

My understanding of the product being offered at that time was that the company would regularly check the land records to see whether the homeowner’s name appeared on any deed or mortgage. The homeowner would be notified of any “hits”. If the homeowner responded to the notification that the instrument in question was, in fact, a forgery, then the company would prepare and file in the land records a document to alert future buyers and lenders of the forgery. I was told that the product did not include attorneys’ fees for clearing titles.

But is “title theft” a thing? Does a forged deed convey real estate? No! Does a forged mortgage require the true owner of the real estate to make payments? No! But can a forger wreak havoc for a property owner? Yes, indeed!

I’ll never forget the name, Matthew Cox or the telephone call that tipped us off that we had a serious mortgage fraud situation here in Columbia. Long before the housing bubble popped beginning in late 2007, an attorney called to let us know what was going on that day in the Richland County ROD office. Representatives of several closing offices were recording mortgages describing the same two residential properties in Blythewood, as if the properties had been refinanced multiple times in the same day by different closing offices.

At first, we thought our company and our attorney agent were in the clear because our mortgage got to record first. South Carolina is a race notice state and getting to record first matters. Later, we learned that deeds to the so-called borrower were forged, so there was no safety for anyone involved in this seedy scenario. Thousands of dollars were lost.

Next, we learned about the two fraudsters who had moved to Columbia from Florida through Atlanta to work their mischief here. The two names were Matthew Cox and Rebecca Hauck. We heard that Cox had been in the mortgage lending business in Florida, where he got into trouble for faking loan documents. He had the guts to write a novel about his antics when he lost his brokerage license and needed funds, but the novel was never published. With funds running low, Cox and his girlfriend, Hauck, moved to Atlanta and then Columbia to continue their mortgage fraud efforts.

We didn’t hear more from the pair until several years later, when we heard they had thankfully been arrested and sent to federal prison.

The crimes perpetuated by Cox and Hauck were made easier by the housing bubble itself. Housing values were inflated and appraisals were hard to nail down. And closings were occurring at a lightening pace. The title companies who had issued commitments and closing protection letters for the lenders were definitely “on the hook”. And the important thing about title insurance is that coverage includes attorneys’ fees for defending titles. I don’t believe the property owners in this case had any coverage but clearing the mortgage issues eventually cleared their title problems.

Would the title theft products have been valuable to the homeowners in this situation? The companies may have notified the owners of the forged deeds and may have filed some kind of notice of the forgery in the land records, but that is all they would have done. Nothing would have prevented the forged mortgages. I am now informed that, under some circumstances, attorneys’ fees to clear title may be included with the title theft products, so perhaps today, the owners would have some protection with a title theft product. These products require “subscriptions” and periodic payments.

A far better alternative is the coverage provided by the ALTA Homeowners Policy of Title Insurance which requires a one-time payment at closing. This is the policy we commonly call “enhanced” coverage. The cost of this policy is twenty percent higher than the traditional owner’s policy, but it includes protection for several events that may occur post-closing. Forgery is one of those events. And, again, title insurance coverage includes attorneys’ fees.

Dirt lawyers who are asked about the title theft products should advise their clients that they can check the land records, most of which are online, to discover whether anyone has “stolen” their titles. And, better yet, they can buy title insurance coverage for peace of mind.

Protracted litigation leads to noteworthy federal title insurance case

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Early in my legal career, I searched a title prior to contentious litigation surrounding a commercial tract in Horry County. I was eight months pregnant with my son at the time. Title examiners as old as I am will remember we used to pull huge books down from high shelves to search titles in South Carolina. I remember this project so well not because of the difficult work in my puffy condition, but because of the time it took to resolve the litigation. When we finally received the final order, my son was in the second grade.

That timing may not hold a candle to the case decided last year in The United States District Court for South Carolina surrounding a tract in Dorchester County. Dudek v. Commonwealth Land Title Insurance Company* is the culmination (I hope) of what the court calls a “long- standing and enduring legal battle” over an eight-acre tract that was divided into two parcels of six and two acres, respectively.

Summarizing the almost undisputed facts as briefly as possible, plaintiffs Stephen Dudek and Doreen Cross entered into a contract to purchase the six-acre tract in 2012. A third party, Molly Morphew, entered into a back-up contract with the sellers to purchase the property in the event the plaintiffs’ purchase fell through. Both parties ultimately sued the seller for specific performance, and the plaintiffs in this case prevailed.

Dudek and Cross purchased the property in 2017 and obtained a title insurance policy from Commonwealth. The litigation with Morphew continued with two subsequent suits, the first alleging fraud and abuse of process in the purchase, and the second seeking to enforce a contract provision setting up a water and sewer easement in favor of the two-acre tract, which by this time had been purchased by Morphew. Dudek and Cross filed a title insurance claim on the easement issue, and Commonwealth denied the claim relying on an exception for easements and the exclusion for risks created by or known to the insured prior the policy date.

I’m eliminating a lot of facts and procedural nuances that title insurance nerds like me will find fascinating, so pull the case for the long story.

The Court held Commonwealth had no duty to defend the insured property owners, relying on the fact that they knew about the easement before they closed. Simple enough, right?

The more convoluted and interesting discussion revolves around the treatment of the policy of the easement issue.  The covered risk in question in the policy was that “someone has an easement on the Land”. The policy contained two exceptions, however, one for unrecorded easements and one for recorded easements. The court stated that the policy simultaneously extended and eliminated coverage for easements, rendering the policy provision meaningless and illusory.

Title insurance agents routinely add specific exceptions to title insurance policies to limit coverage. This case cautions against adding exceptions that operate to prevent all coverage from a covered risk. We will all need to be careful about this holding as time progresses.

*466 F. Supp. 3d 610 (D.S.C. 2020)

Department of Revenue issues common law marriage ruling

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On February 1, South Carolina’s Department of Revenue issued SC Revenue Ruling 21-3 concerning common law marriage. You can read the ruling in its entirety here.

I love the topic of common law marriage because it because it reminds me of the movie “The Big Chill”. “The Big Chill” is one of my husband’s favorite movies, in fact, it’s up there with “Brave Heart” and “Casablanca”. Several years ago, we celebrated a milestone birthday by inviting two couples who were friends from law school to the mountains for a “Big Chill Weekend” of eating great food, playing great music* and reminiscing about the old days. We did agree to eliminate drugs and spouse swapping from the Big Chill agenda.

Effective July 24, 2019, the South Carolina Supreme Court abolished common law marriage in South Carolina.** This rule will be prospective only. Parties may no longer enter into a valid marriage in South Carolina without a license.

Hang on. I will explain how the movie and common law marriage in South Carolina connect for those two young to remember the news. (And the connection has nothing to do with our Big Chill weekend.)

When the movie was being filmed in the winter of 1982-83 in Beaufort, actor William Hurt was living with Sandra Jennings, a former dancer in the New York City Ballet. Ms. Jennings became pregnant with Mr. Hurt’s son, Alexander Devon Hurt, who was born in 1983. The couple lived together in New York and on the road from 1981 – 1984.

When the couple split, Ms. Jennings brought suit in New York claiming a share of Mr. Hurt’s substantial assets, based on the theory that they had established a common law marriage during the few months they lived in South Carolina. She sought a divorce. Child support was not an issue because Mr. Hurt was paying $65,000 per year to support the couple’s son. Common law marriages hadn’t been recognized in New York since 1933, so the claim was based on South Carolina law and the short time the couple lived together in Beaufort.

Ms. Jennings was not successful in the lawsuit, but litigation is very expensive, and the story got lots of mileage in South Carolina. The standing line was that actors had to be careful in this state! Maybe the cast can finally return for a sequel.

The Supreme Court stated that the time has come to join the overwhelming national trend, despite our legislature’s failure, to abolish common law marriage. The court said, “The paternalistic motivations underlying common-law marriage no longer outweigh the offenses to public policy the doctrine engenders.” 

I know some other outdated ideas I’d like to see abolished in South Carolina.

The Revenue Ruling acknowledged the abolishment of common law marriage and stated that any couple living in South Carolina in a common law marriage established prior to July 24, 2019 is married for federal and state income tax purposes and must file their returns using the filing status “married filing jointly” or “married filing separately”. They cannot file using the filing status “single”.

On or after July 24, 2019, according to the Revenue Ruling, unmarried South Carolina couples must obtain a marriage license to use the filing status “married filing jointly” or “married filing separately”.

If a couple entered into a valid common law marriage in another state, , South Carolina continues to recognize the couple as married when they establish their domicile in South Carolina, according to the Revenue Ruling.

Dirt lawyers recognize that common law marriage can make a huge difference in title and probate matters, so this Revenue Ruling is a good reminder for us.

* Favorite lines from the movie which demonstrate, in part, why it’s a favorite: Michael: “Harold, don’t you have any other music, you know, from this century?” Harold: “There is no other music, not in my house.”  There is no other music in the Manning house either. 

Favorite movie trivia: The dead guy, the corpse being dressed for his funeral in the opening scenes, was played by none other than Kevin Costner. There were plans to have flash-back scenes to the characters’ college antics, but those scenes were later eliminated.

** Stone v. Thompson, South Carolina Supreme Court Opinion 27908 (July 24, 2019).

COVID forbearance extended

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The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has extended COVID-19 foreclosure and forbearance moratoriums through June 30, 2021. It also extended the deadline for the first legal action and the reasonable diligence time frame to 180 days.

COVID-19 forbearance was also extended to allow up to two forbearance extensions of up to three months each for homeowners who requested a forbearance on or before June 30, 2020. These extensions are intended to provide relief to homeowners who will be nearing the end of their maximum 12-month forbearance period and have not yet stabilized their financial situation.

FHA’s streamlined COVID-19 loss mitigation home retention and home disposition options were extended to all homeowners who are behind on their mortgage payments by at least 90 days.

Diana Hoffman, Corporate Escrow Administrator with Fidelity recently wrote an excellent article about mortgage forbearance that I previously shared on this blog and am now sharing again with South Carolina closing attorneys in its entirety:

“Forbearance does not erase what the borrower owes. The borrower will have to repay any missed or reduced payments in the future. Borrowers able to keep up with their payments should continue to make payments. The types of forbearance available varies by loan type.

At the end of the forbearance, the borrower’s options can include paying their missed payments:

  • At one time
  • Spread out over a period of months
  • Added as additional payments, or
  • Added as a lump sum at the end of their mortgage

The CARES Act requires servicers to grant forbearance up to 180 days, with a one–time extension of 180 days for borrowers experiencing a hardship due to COVID–19 issues, such as, loss of income, unemployment, illness or caring for a sick relative.*

The CARES Act also provides protection against derogatory marks against the borrower’s credit. However, the servicer can report notes to the credit bureau that can be seen by any future creditor that could prevent the borrower from obtaining any type of new financing for a 12–month period.

When the Federal Housing Finance Agency reports servicers who collect payments on mortgages backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, they will only be required to cover four months of missed payments on loans in forbearance.

The big question is what happens when that four–month period is over? As it turns out, the Government Sponsored Entities (GSEs) themselves are preparing to cover any remaining advances for as long as those loans remain in forbearance.

What does this mean to the title industry? To prevent payoff losses due to deferred payments, settlement agents should:

  • Ask borrowers if they have entered into a forbearance or loan modification agreement with their lender at the opening of the transaction
  • Review the preliminary report or commitment for title insurance for junior liens, securing the deferred payments
  • Ensure the payoff request includes the following language:
    • Please furnish to us a statement of the amount necessary to pay in full including any amounts deferred due to a forbearance or modification agreement.
      If the borrower entered into a forbearance agreement and you are not the entity servicing any deferred amounts, please provide the contact information for the entity who is.
  • Review the payoff statement for deferred principal balance amounts

The last item is important. If the deferred amounts are not contained in the payoff statements, it is likely the amounts are being serviced by another loan servicer and a separate payoff statement will need to be requested”

*See above in the main article. Two extensions are now allowed.