Tag: judgment creditor

LLC Stopped From Selling Member’s Residence In Violation of Prior Charging Order – Utah Federal Court

Q: Can A Court Stop An LLC That Pays the Monthly Mortgage of One of Its Members From Selling that Member’s Home Where A Charging Order Has Issued Against the LLC to Enforce a Money Judgment Against the LLC Member?

A: Yes.

Q2: How So?

A2: By selling the member’s property and paying off the member’s mortgage with the sale proceeds, the LLC is effectively “paying the member” to the exclusion of the plaintiff judgment creditor.

Source: Earthgrains Baking Companies, Inc. v. Sycamore Family Bakery, Inc., et al, USDC Utah 2015 (https://casetext.com/case/earthgrains-baking-cos-v-sycamore-family-bakery-inc-3)

In this case, the plaintiff won a multi-million dollar money judgment against a corporate and individual defendant in a trademark dispute.  The plaintiff then secured a charging order against a LLC of which the individual defendant was a 48% member.  When the LLC failed to respond to the charging order, the plaintiff moved for an order of contempt against the LLC and sought to stop the LLC from selling the defendant’s home.

The court granted the contempt motion.  First, the court found that it had jurisdiction over the LLC.  The LLC argued that Utah lacked jurisdiction over it since the LLC was formed in Nevada.  The LLC claimed that under the “internal affairs” doctrine, the state of the LLC’s formation – Nevada – governs legal matters concerning the LLC.

Disagreeing, the court noted that a LLC’s internal affairs are limited only to “matters peculiar to the relationships among or between the corporation and its current officers, directors, and shareholders.”  The internal affairs doctrine does not apply to claims of third party creditors.  Here, since the plaintiff was a creditor of the LLC’s member, this was not a dispute between LLC and member.  As a result, the internal affairs rule didn’t apply and the Utah court had jurisdiction over the LLC since a LLC member lived in Utah.  (See Cosgrove v. Bartolotta, 150 F.3d 729, 731 (7th Cir. 1998)).

The Charging Order required the LLC to pay any distribution that would normally go to the member directly to the plaintiff until the money judgment was satisfied.  The Charging Order specifically mentions transfers characterized or designated as payment for defendant’s “loans,” among other things.

The LLC was making monthly mortgage payments on the member’s home and listed the home for sale in the amount of $4M.  Plaintiff wanted to prevent the sale since there was a prior $2M mortgage on the home.

In blocking the sale, the court found that if the LLC sold the member’s home and paid off the member’s mortgage lender with the proceeds, this would violate the Charging Order since it would constitute an indirect payment to the member.  The court deemed any payoff of the member’s mortgage a “distribution” (a direct or indirect transfer of money or property from LLC to member) under the Utah’s LLC Act. (Utah Code Ann. § 48-2c-102(5)(a)).

Since the Charging Order provided that any loan payments involving the member were to be paid to the plaintiff until the judgment is satisfied, the court found that to allow the LLC to sell the property and disburse the proceeds to a third party (the lender) would harm the plaintiff in its ability to satisfy the judgment.

Afterwords:

An interesting case that discusses the intricacies of charging orders and the thorny questions that arise when trying to figure out where to sue an LLC that has contacts in several states.  The case portrays a court willing to give an expansive interpretation of what constitutes an indirect distribution from an LLC to its member. 

Earthgrains also reflects a court endeavoring to protect a creditor’s judgment rights where an LLC and its member appear to be engaging in misdirection (if not outright deception) in order to elude the creditor.

[A special thanks to attorney and Forbes contributor Jay Adkisson for alerting me to this case (http://www.forbes.com/sites/jayadkisson/)]

 

Family Trust Set Up in Good Faith Shields Family Member from Creditor – IL Case Note

In Hickory Point Bank & Trust v. Natual Concepts, Inc., 2017 IL App (3d) 160260, the appeals court affirmed a trial court’s denial of a judgment creditor’s motion to impose a judicial lien and order the turnover of trust assets.

The corporate defendant defaulted on the loan that was guaranteed by corporate principals.

Plaintiff entered confessed judgments against the corporate and individual defendants.

Through post-judgment proceedings, plaintiff learned one of the individual defendants was trustee of an irrevocable family trust whose sole asset was four pieces of real estate formerly owned by the defendant’s father.

The document provided that upon death of defendants’ parents, the trust assets would be distributed 85% to defendant with the rest (15%) going to defendant’s three sons.

To satisfy its default judgment against defendant, plaintiff alternately moved to liquidate and turnover the trust assets and to impress a judicial lien against the trust property.

The trial court held that the trust was protected from judgment creditors under Code section 2-1403 (735 ILCS 5/2-1403) and denied the plaintiff’s motion. Plaintiff appealed.

The central issue was whether or not the trust was self-settled.  A “self-settled” trust is “a trust in which the settlor is also the person who is to receive the benefits from the trust, usually set up in an attempt to protect the trust assets from creditors.” Black’s Law Dictionary 1518 (7th ed. 2002).

Like most states, Illinois follows the general rule that a self-settled trust created for the settlor’s own benefit will not protect trust assets from the settlor’s creditors. See Rush University Medical Center v. Sessions, 2012 IL 112906, ¶ 20.

Code Section 2-1403 codifies the rule that protects trusts that are not self-settled.  This statute states:

“No court, except as otherwise provided in this Section, shall order the satisfaction of a judgment out of any property held in trust for the judgment debtor if such trust has, in good faith, been created by, or the fund so held in trust has proceeded from, a person other than the judgment debtor.” 735 ILCS 5/2–1403 (West 2014).

Based on the plain statutory text, a creditor’s judgment cannot be satisfied by funds held in trust for a judgment debtor where (1) the trust was created in good faith and (2) a person other than the judgment debtor created the trust or the funds held in trust proceeded from someone other than the judgment debtor.

Here, there was evidence that the trust was formed in good faith.  It pre-dated by five years the date of the commercial loan and defendants’ default.  There was no evidence the trust was created to dodge creditors like the plaintiff.  The trust language stated it was designed for the care of Defendant’s elderly parents during their lifetimes.

The Court also deemed significant that Defendant was not the trust beneficiary. Again, the trust was set up to benefit Defendants’ parents and the trust was funded with the parents’ assets.  Because the trust assets originated from someone other than the defendant, the second prong of Section 2-1403 was satisfied.

Plaintiff’s alternative argument that the court should impress a judicial lien against defendant’s 85% trust interest also failed.  The law is clear that a creditor may not impose a lien on funds that are in the hands of a trustee.  But once those trust funds are distributed to a beneficiary, a creditor can access them. (¶¶ 26-27)

Since thse trust assets (the four real estate parcels) had not been distributed to defendants under the terms of the trust, defendant’s interest in the properties could not be liened by the plaintiff.

Afterwords:

A good example of a family trust shielding trust assets from the reach of a family member’s creditor.

Self-settled trusts (trusts where the settlor and beneficiary are the same person) are not exempt from creditor interference.  However, where the trust is created in good faith and funded with assets originating from someone other than a debtor, a creditor of that debtor will not be able to attach the trust assets until they “leave” the trust and are distributed to the debtor.

 

Joint Mortgage Debt Means No Tenancy By Entirety Protection for Homeowners

The Illinois First District recently affirmed a mortgage foreclosure summary judgment for a plaintiff mortgage lender in a case involving the protection given to tenancy by the entirety (TBE) property.

In Marquette Bank v. Heartland Bank and Trust, 2015 IL App (1st) 142627, the main issue was whether a marital home was protected from foreclosure where it was owned by a land trust, the beneficiaries of which were a husband and wife; each owning beneficial interests TBE.

The defendants argued that since their home was owned by a land trust and they were the TBE beneficial owners of that land trust, the plaintiff could not foreclose its mortgage.

Affirming summary judgment, the appeals court examined the interplay between land trust law and how TBE property impacts judgment creditors’ rights.

The Illinois Joint Tenancy Act (765 ILCS 1005/1c) allows land trust beneficiaries to own their interests TBE and Code Section 12-112 (735 ILCS 5/12-112) provides that a TBE land trust beneficial interest “shall not be liable to be sold upon judgment entered….against only one of the tenants, except if the property was transferred into [TBE] with the sole intent to avoid the payment of debts existing at the time of the transfer beyond the transferor’s ability to pay those debts as they become due.”

TBE ownership protects marital residence property from a foreclosing creditor of only one spouse.  In TBE ownership, a husband and wife are considered a single unit – they each own 100% of the home – and the judgment creditors of one spouse normally can’t enforce a money judgment against the other spouse by forcing the home’s sale.

An exception to this rule is where property is conveyed into TBE solely to evade one spouse’s debt.  Another limitation on TBE protection is where both spouses are jointly liable on a debt.  In the joint debt setting, a judgment against one spouse will attach to the marital home and can be foreclosed on by the judgment creditor.

Code Section 12-112 provides that where property is held in a land trust and the trust’s beneficial owners are husband and wife, a creditor of only one of them can’t sell the other spouse’s beneficial land trust interest. 735 ILCS 5/12-112.

The Court rejected the defendants argument that as TBE land trust beneficiaries of the marital home, the spouse defendants were immune from foreclosure.  It noted that both spouses signed letters of direction authorizing the land trustee (owner) to mortgage the property, the mortgage documents allowed the plaintiff to foreclose in the event of default and empowered the lender to sell all or any part of the property. (¶¶ 16-18)

Summary Quick-Hits:

  • TBE property ownership protects an innocent spouse by saving the marital home from a judgment creditor’s foreclosure suit where only one spouse is liable on a debt;
  • A land trust beneficial interest is considered personal property and can be jointly owned in tenancy by the entirety;
  • Where spouses are jointly (both) liable on an underlying debt, TBE property can be sold to satisfy the joint debt.