Transfer Made On The Morning Of Sheriff’s Sale, For The Purpose Of Delaying The Sheriff’s Sale, Deemed Fraudulent

by: Peter J. Gallagher (@pjsgallagher) (LinkedIn)

Sometimes you read decisions and you don't understand how the court arrived at its conclusion based on the facts of the case. Then other times, the conclusion just makes sense. These are the decisions you read and think to yourself, "of course you can't do that." The Appellate Division's opinion in 5 Perry Street, LLC v. Southwind Properties, LLC, is one of these cases.

In Perry Street, defendants were a limited liability corporation and the sole member of that corporation. The corporate defendant owned property in Cape May that it operated as a bed and breakfast.Two "non-institutional lenders" held mortgages on the property. After they foreclosed and obtained a final judgment of foreclosure, a sheriff's sale was scheduled. The corporate defendant obtained four adjournments of the sheriff's sale and attempted to refinance the property, but was "unable to consummate a transaction" before the sheriff's sale.

Instead, the day before the sheriff's sale, the individual defendant filed for bankruptcy. She then transferred the underlying property from the corporate defendant to herself. The consideration for the transfer was $1 and the "Balance of outstanding mortgages $80,000.00." The $1 consideration was typed into the deed, but the individual defendant hand wrote the part about the outstanding mortgages. She claimed that her intent was to "assume personal liability for the mortgages," but the Appellate Division noted that the balance of the mortgages at the time was almost $250,000, not $80,000, and that other documents she signed reflected that the only consideration was $1. She "filed the deed the next day, an hour and a half before the Sheriff's sale."

Continue reading “Transfer Made On The Morning Of Sheriff’s Sale, For The Purpose Of Delaying The Sheriff’s Sale, Deemed Fraudulent” →

Just In Time For Finals: Court Poses, Then Answers, Law School Exam Question On Fraudulent Conveyances

In Motorworld, Inc. v. Benkendorf, the Appellate Division decided to "put the issue raised in [the] appeal as if it were a law school exam," and then answer the exam question. Here is how it described the case:

A owns all the outstanding stock of DEF and GHI; her husband, B, operates all these and other entities wholly-owned by A. XYZ has done work for some of A and B's entities over the course of many years.

One of XYZ's principals asked B for a loan. B agreed, and A transferred $499,000 to DEF, a moribund entity. DEF then transferred $500,000 to XYZ, which executed a promissory note in DEF's favor; this note became DEF's only asset and its only debt is its unspoken obligation to repay A.

XYZ continued to perform work for GHI, and the note's due date was repeatedly extended; meanwhile, GHI's indebtedness to XYZ rose to approximately $1,000,000. Consequently, DEF executed a release of the note in exchange for XYZ's forgiveness of GHI's debt.

Was DEF's release of the note a fraudulent conveyance?

Believe it or not, this description was actually less complicated than the facts of the case.

Continue reading “Just In Time For Finals: Court Poses, Then Answers, Law School Exam Question On Fraudulent Conveyances” →

Transfer Can Be Fraudulent Even If It Occurs Before Loan, Default, And Lawsuit Over Default On Loan

A recent Appellate Division decision should serve as a warning to anyone thinking about transferring assets and rendering themselves judgment proof before entering into a business deal. If the deal goes bad, the transfer might be deemed fraudulent and creditors might be able to look to the fraudulently transferred assets to satisfy their judgments.

In Anastasi v. Barmbatsis, defendants, husband and wife, held all of the shares in a single-purpose entity that owned and operated a Stewart's Root Beer in Franklin Park, New Jersey. Shortly before procuring a loan to open a new Stewart's location with a partner, husband transferred his interest in the entity to wife, along with nearly all of his interest in another entity that the two owned. Husband then entered into a deal with plaintiff — verbal, but "apparently sealed with a handshake" — to borrow $50,000 to use to open the new restaurant. Defendants used this money, along with other funds, to open the restaurant.

Husband agreed to repay the loan in five to seven months. This was subsequently extended but husband failed to repay the loan even with the extension. Plaintiff sued and obtained a default judgment against husband for $50,000. In post-judgment discovery, plaintiff learned about the pre-loan transfers from husband to wife. Thereafter, he sued both husband and wife alleging, among other things, that the transfers violated New Jersey's Uniform Fraudulent Transfers Act (the "UFTA"). The trial court ruled in plaintiff's favor. It held that wife was not personally responsible for paying back the loan, but plaintiff could satisfy his judgment with the interests in the two entities that husband had transferred to wife.

Continue reading “Transfer Can Be Fraudulent Even If It Occurs Before Loan, Default, And Lawsuit Over Default On Loan” →

Enforcement Action Against Rating Agency Allowed To Proceed

by: Peter J. Gallagher (@pjsgallagher)

In an interesting decision issued today, Judge Katz (Essex County) denied a motion to dismiss filed by the ratings agency Standard & Poor's ("S&P") in an enforcement action brought against S&P by the New Jersey Attorney General. In Hoffman v. McGraw-Hill Financial, Inc., the Attorney General alleged that S&P violated the Consumer Fraud Act ("CFA") by misrepresenting to New Jersey consumers that S&P's analysis and rating of structured finance securities was independent and objective. The opinion contains decisions on both procedural personal jurisdiction issues and substantive CFA issues that all litigators should find interesting.

[Lawsuits against ratings agencies are nothing new. Several years ago, I wrote an article about these lawsuits and, at the time, the relative success the rating agencies had defending against them. (If you did not save your copy of the article, click here for another copy.) Historically, the rating agencies argued that their ratings were proetced under the First Amendment, but at least one court rejected this argument in the context of a motion to dismiss in a lawsuit that eventually settled.]

Continue reading “Enforcement Action Against Rating Agency Allowed To Proceed” →