Month: September 2022

Contract drafters beware!

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SC Supreme Court invalidates builder arbitration clause … and refuses to enforce the severability provision

It’s rare that we read the Advance Sheets and pause to say “wow”, but this is one of those cases! Damico v. Lennar Carolinas, LLC* is a construction defect suit brought by a number of homeowners against their homebuilder and general contractor, Lennar Carolinas, LLC. The case involves new homes in The Abbey, a subdivision in the Spring Grove Plantation neighborhood located in Berkeley County, consisting of 69 single-family homes constructed between 2010 and 2015. The suit alleged, among other things, negligence, breach of contract, and breach of various warranties.

Lennar moved to compel arbitration. The Circuit Court denied the motion to compel, finding the contracts were grossly one-sided and unconscionable and thus the arbitration provisions were unenforceable. The Court of Appeals reversed, citing a United States Supreme Court case** that forbids consideration of unconscionable terms outside of an arbitration (the Prima Paint doctrine).

The South Carolina Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeals that the Circuit Court violated the Prima Paint doctrine but agreed with the homeowners that the arbitration provisions, standing alone, contain a number of oppressive and one-sided terms, thereby rendering the provisions unconscionable and unenforceable.  The Court further declined to sever the unconscionable terms from the remainder of the arbitration provisions.

The Court denied severability for two reasons. First, enforcing the severability provision would have required the Court to blue-pencil the agreement regarding a material term of the contract, a result strongly disfavored in contract disputes. Second, as a matter of policy, The Court found severing terms from an unconscionable contract of adhesion discourages fair, arms-length transactions.

The Court said that if it honored the severability clause in such contracts, it would encourage sophisticated parties to intentionally insert unconscionable terms—that often go unchallenged—throughout their contracts, believing the courts would step in and rescue them from their gross overreach. This is not to say, according to the Court, that severability clauses in general should not be honored, because the courts are constrained to enforce a contract in accordance with the parties’ intent.

Rather, the Court said it merely recognized that where a contract would remain one-sided and be fragmented after severance, the better policy is to decline the invitation for judicial severance.

I read this case to be a clear message to lawyers that it doesn’t pay to be too clever in drafting contracts.

The Court defined unconscionability to mean the absence of meaningful choice on the part of one party because of one-sided contract provisions, together with terms that are so oppressive that no reasonable person would make them and no fair and honest person would accept them. The touchstone of the analysis begins with the presence of absence of meaningful choice coupled with unreasonably oppressive terms.

What was so horrible about the contract in question?

One provision gave Lennar the sole discretion to include or exclude its contractors, subcontractors and suppliers, as well as any warranty company and insurer as parties in the arbitration. The Court said that it is a fundamental principle of law that the plaintiff is the master of the complaint and the sole decider of whom to sue for the injuries. Giving Lennar the “sole election” to include or exclude parties strips the homeowners of that right, according to the Court. Taken to its logical conclusion, this provision could require homeowners to litigate with some defendants and arbitrate with others.

Another provision said the homeowners “expressly negotiated and bargained for the waiver of the implied warranty of habitability (for) valuable consideration…in the amount of $0.”

Similarly, the contract specifically stated that the “(l)oss of the use of all or a portion of your Home” is not covered by its warranty to new homebuyers.

Another provision stated, “(T)his Agreement shall be construed as if both parties jointly prepared it”, a blatant falsehood, according to the Court, “and no presumption against one party or the other shall govern the interpretation or construction of any of the provisions of this Agreement.”

The Court found that these and other terms of the contracts to be absurd, factually incorrect, and grossly oppressive.

The Court pointed to the fact that Lennar is significantly more sophisticated than the consumer homeowners, creating a disparity in the parties’ bargaining power and that South Carolina has a deeply-rooted and long-standing policy of protecting new home buyers.

The Court said, “It is clear that Lennar furnished a grossly one-sided contract and arbitration provision, hoping a court would rescue the one-sided contract through a severability clause. We refuse to reward such misconduct, particularly in a home construction setting.”

WOW!

Lawyers who represent consumers should wave this case in the face of parties who claim contracts can never be negotiated. Every contract can be negotiated, and this case is clear evidence that this fact is true in South Carolina. Consumer lawyers, this is your case!

*South Carolina Supreme Court Opinion 28114 (September 14, 2022)

**Prima Paint Corp. v. Flood & Conklin Mfg. Co, 388 U.S. 395 (1967)

FEMA’s action causing many homeowners to drop flood insurance

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Devine St. and Crowson Rd., Columbia, SC during the “1000-year flood” of 2015

If you have clients who are complaining about the rising cost of flood insurance, there may be a good reason for those complaints. This issue came to my attention through The DIRT listserv which I have recommended to South Carolina dirt lawyers several times. If you haven’t already, subscribe to this listserv for interesting discussions of current real estate topics.

In 2021, FEMA announced that the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) was shifting to a risk-based premium system. The new system is called Risk Rating 2.0, and it attempts to base premiums on the actual characteristics of individual properties rather than simply referring to “flood maps”. I’d like to refer everyone to this article from ClimateWire dated August 27, 2022.

According to the article, FEMA’s shift was intended to encourage more homeowners to buy flood insurance by showing more precisely the risk that each property faces of being flooded. The shift has apparently caused the opposite result. Many homeowners have dropped FEMA flood insurance based on increasing premiums. It should be noted that many premiums were also reduced.

Closing attorneys understand all too well that properties in high-risk flood zones require flood insurance if the property owners obtain federally backed mortgages. The individuals who are dropping the coverage are not those who have such mortgages. Many of the individuals opting out of flood insurance because of increased costs are low-income individuals in coastal areas.

The article states that the number of NFIP policies dropped from 4.96 million in September of 2021 to 4.54 million in June of 2022. The declining numbers cause concerns that owners whose homes are flooded will not be able to rebuild or recover financially, and that low-income households will suffer the most.

FEMA told the reporter that many factors could influence the drop in policy holders, including the economic impact of the pandemic, inflation, the housing market, and the affordability of purchasing flood insurance from the private market. It is not clear how many people who dropped NFIP policies have bought flood insurance through private insurers. In other words, FEMA does not consider that its change in premium calculations is the sole cause of the problem.

We need to pay attention to this issue as Congress wrestles with possible solutions. It is certainly dangerous to have flood insurance priced in a way that fails to protect low-income homeowners who live in the most precarious areas geographically.

Myrtle Beach article points to current fraud cases

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The Myrtle Beach Sun News published an article on September 5 entitled, “They were conned out of their dream beach home, lawsuit says. These are common SC scams.”  You can read the article here.

Those of us who have worked in the real estate industry for years have heard of (or been bitten by) various iterations of real estate fraud schemes. These schemes change routinely as the fraudsters become more sophisticated. Thankfully, we are becoming more informed and therefore more sophisticated ourselves. But this article is an excellent reminder.

The article recounts the tale of a North Carolina couple, Jeremy and Candice Pedley, who spent years saving before finally acting on their dream of owning a family vacation home in North Myrtle Beach. The Pedleys entered into a contract last November to purchase a condo in in a gated community for $380,000. Unfortunately, a third party hacked into the real estate agent’s emails, impersonated their closing attorney, and convinced he Pedleys so wire their funds to a bank account in Rock Hill.

The hacking effort requested the exact number the Pedleys were expecting to wire, $86,183.81. This fact convinced the Pedleys that the fraudulent instructions were legitimate. According to the article, they have been able to recover about $36,000 of the lost funds. They were unable to complete the purchase of their dream condominium.

Columbia attorney Dave Maxfield is representing the Pedleys in a lawsuit attempting to recover their funds. According to the article, Maxfield told the Sun News that banks should do a better job stopping fraudulent accounts from being used, and real estate agents and attorneys need to warn clients about the pitfalls of wiring funds.

The article then details a few other common scams outlined by The S.C. Department of Consumer Affairs.

One such scheme creates fake rental listings promising low rent, immediate availability, and great amenities. The goal is to trick renters into transferring funds before they are tipped off that the listings don’t exist.

Another scheme notifies consumers that they have won the lottery, requesting, of course, some sort of fee or tax to receive the alleged winnings. Pressure is applied to “act now”.

Finally, the article discussed fake debt collectors. Fraudsters impersonate government authorities and attempt to convince consumers to pay off debt. These schemes typically request the target to pay a fraction of the amount they owe in return for full debt forgiveness. Threats of arrest are often used to apply pressure.

Please keep yourself and your staff members educated about all the current schemes. Your title insurance company should be a great source of current information. And please give your staff members permission to slow down and use the time they need to think through the facts of your transactions. I believe time is the key. The very smart individuals you employ, if properly armed with the necessary information and education, should be able to thwart most of these schemes, if they are given sufficient time to analyze the communications that hit their inboxes daily.

Failure to search title leads to disastrous result

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Fourth Circuit unpublished opinion weighs in on SC tax sale issue

South Carolina appellate courts will overturn tax sales on the flimsiest of technicalities. In a recent unpublished opinion of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, a tax sale was not overturned, but the result was almost the same for the tax sale purchaser who failed to search the title.

Remember that an unpublished opinion has no precedential value, but this case is particularly interesting to South Carolina dirt lawyers who understand the necessity of searching titles. Thanks to my friend and real estate litigator extraordinaire Jim Koutrakos who sent this case to me.

Guardian Tax SC, LLC v. Day* involved a Charleston County tax sale. Ralph and Virginia Day bought property in Charleston in 1991. In 2006, the Days mortgaged the property to Bank of New York Mellon. Between 2005 and 2007, the Days failed to pay their federal income taxes, and beginning in 2010, they failed to pay -county taxes.

In 2016, the Day’s title was subject to three interests: (1) the county tax lien; (2) the mortgage; and (3) the federal tax lien. By operation of law (S.C. Code §12-49-10), the county tax lien took priority. The mortgage had a higher priority than the federal tax lien because it was recorded first. Charleston County sold the property to Guardian through a tax sale that year.

The County did not notify the bank or the United States of the tax sale, but it did publish notice in a local newspaper. Guardian’s purchase of the property satisfied the County lien and generated approximately $1.6 million in excess proceeds. The Days owed approximately $3.5 million to the bank and their federal tax liabilities totaled approximately $2.9 million.

After the tax sale, the County searched the title and notified the Days and the bank of their one-year statutory redemption period. The County did not notify the United States nor inform Guardian of the notices it sent to the Days and the bank. Neither the Days nor the bank redeemed the property. At some point after the expiration of the period of redemption, Guardian searched the title and discovered for the first time the interests of the bank and the United States. Guardian filed a quiet title action which was removed to federal court by the United States.

Guardian, the bank, and the United States filed competing motions for summary judgment. Guardian and the bank argued over the excess proceeds, and Guardian argued that the federal tax lien was extinguished by the tax sale or, alternatively, the United States should be awarded a 120 day right of redemption.

The district court agreed with the bank that it was entitled to the proceeds and agreed with the United States that its lien was valid and that a right of redemption was not appropriate. The Court of Appeals affirmed, holding that the tax sale was nonjudicial and that the United States’ lien survived the tax sale because it did not receive the required notice. Further, because of the lack of notice, the redemption period never began to run.

Both courts rejected Guardian’s argument that the federal lien should be extinguished because of South Carolina equitable principles because federal law governs the enforcement of federal tax liens. The Court of Appeals quoted the District Court’s jab that there is “nothing inequitable about the outcome” because Guardian could have avoided the result by engaging in due diligence prior to the tax sale by searching the title, a “minimal burden.”

*United States District Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit Unpublished Opinion No. 21-1411 (August 23, 2022)