Case ID: ga-app_192/html/0253-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Benham, Judge.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

A89A0664.
    NUNLEY CONTRACTING COMPANY, INC. v. FOUR TAYLORS, INC.
    (384 SE2d 216)
   Benham, Judge.

Appellee is the fee owner of real property. The property is leased to Mar kan Villa, Inc. (Mar kan). Appellant was a subcontractor on a construction project undertaken by Markan. When the prime contractor did not pay the amount appellant claimed under the subcontract, appellant filed suit against the contractor and sought to impose a lien on appellee’s property. The trial court granted appellee’s motion for summary judgment. We affirm.

“A contract for improvements between a lessee and a material-man does not subject the interest of the lessor to a lien unless a contractual relationship exists between the lessor and the materialman as well. [Cit.] No express or implied consent of [Four Taylors] to the contract for improvements appears. Mere knowledge by the lessor of the improvements does not give rise to the lien. [Cit.]” Accurate Constr. Co. v. Dobbs Houses, 154 Ga. App. 605 (269 SE2d 494) (1980).

Appellant attempts to avoid the rule stated in Accurate Constr. Co. by asserting that the relationship between the lessor and the lessee is such as to charge the lessor with more than mere knowledge of the improvements. However, although the record shows that appel-lee’s shareholders are the offspring of Mark Taylor, the sole shareholder of Markan; that Taylor owned the property at the time the lease with Markan was executed; and that he subsequently conveyec the property to appellee subject to the lease and to other encumbrances associated with a plan to build government subsidized low-income housing, there was no showing that the corporations involvec are not separate entities or that appellee had any involvement in th( property other than as owner and lessor. Although appellant contendí that appellee made the property subject to its lien by participating ii arranging the financing of the project, the evidence on which appel lant relies to support that proposition is nothing more than an agree ment by which appellee (as transferee of title to the property), th developer, and the housing authority agreed to subordinate their in terests to those of the lender. The agreement on which appellant re lies shows no more than approval of the construction project; it doe not show any approval of the contract between appellant and th lessee/developer such as would make the property subject to appel lant’s lien under Accurate Constr. Co., supra.

In the cases cited by appellant, Bennett Iron Works v. Underground Atlanta, 130 Ga. App. 653 (204 SE2d 331) (1974), and Columbus Square &c. Co. v. B & H Steel Co., 150 Ga. App. 774 (258 SE2 600) (1979), the lessors did more than merely consent to improve ments being made; they contracted for them and paid the lessees b means of lease credits. There is no evidence in the record of this cas to suggest such an arrangement.

Applying the rule in Accurate Constr. Co. to the facts establishe in the record of this case, we hold that the trial court was correct i granting summary judgment to appellee. That being so, appellant second enumeration of error, attacking an alternate ground assertf by appellee in the trial court as a basis for summary judgment, is moot and need not be addressed.

Decided June 23, 1989

Rehearing denied July 12, 1989

Davis, Kirsch & Wolfe, Dock H. Davis, for appellant.

Drew, Eckl & Farnham, T. Bart Gary, Michael F. Swick, for ap-pellee.

Judgment affirmed.

Deen, P. J., and Birdsong, J., concur.