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Parties Involved:
Jeffrey L. Miller
Appellee
NLVK
Appellant

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

___________

No. 05-3651

___________

In re: Jeffrey L. Miller, *

 *

Debtor. *

 *

Jeffrey L. Miller, *

* Appeal from the United States

Plaintiff - Appellee, * District Court for the District of

* Nebraska.

v. * 

*

NLVK, LLC, a Nevada limited *

liability company, *

*

Defendant - Appellant. *

___________

Submitted: April 19, 2006

 Filed: July 21, 2006 

___________

Before MURPHY, MELLOY, and GRUENDER, Circuit Judges.

___________

MELLOY, Circuit Judge.

At a foreclosure sale, NLVK, LLC (“NLVK”) purchased a property that had

been owned by Jeffrey Miller. Unbeknownst to NLVK, Miller had declared

bankruptcy prior to the sale. The district court granted Miller’s request to set aside the

property transfer. We reverse and remand.

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The bankruptcy court assumed the total secured debt on the property was

approximately $500,000 with the addition of unpaid real estate taxes added to the

mortgage balance. 

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I.

Miller purchased real property in Las Vegas, Nevada, on September 20, 2001.

He took out a secured mortgage for $495,150 with the New Freedom Mortgage

Corporation (“NFMC”). Miller subsequently failed to pay the required dues to his

homeowner’s association, Rhodes Ranch Association (the “Association”). 

On September 3, 2003, Miller filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy in the United

States Bankruptcy Court for the District of Nebraska. Miller neither listed the

Association as a creditor on any of his bankruptcy filings nor filed a notice of

bankruptcy with the county real estate office in Nevada.

On October 10, 2003, NLVK purchased the property at a foreclosure auction

for $3,847. That was the amount Miller owed the Association in past dues and

foreclosure costs at the time that the property was sold. At the time of the purchase,

the balance on the mortgage was approximately $463,000.1

 The record is unclear as

to whether there were additional liens on the property inferior to the mortgage. Miller

asserts that the property was worth $630,000 to $650,000 at the time of the foreclosure

sale. NLVK properly recorded its purchase on October 22, 2003. 

On March 10, 2004, Miller amended his bankruptcy schedule to include the

debt to the Association and filed an Adversary Complaint to Recover Property in the

bankruptcy court against NLVK and the Association. He alleged that the sale violated

the automatic stay provisions of 11 U.S.C. § 362 and sought to set aside the real estate

transfer pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 549(a). 

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The bankruptcy court found no violation of the automatic stay, but set aside the

transfer. It determined that prior liens on the property, including the mortgage, should

not be considered in determining fair equivalent value because NLVK had not

assumed the mortgage or other liens. It then found that the payment of $3,847 did not

constitute “present fair equivalent value” and, thus, NLVK was not entitled to the safe

harbor provisions of 11 U.S.C. § 549(c). NLVK’s appeal was heard by the United

States District Court for the District of Nebraska. The district court found that “the

bankruptcy judge committed no error in setting aside the post-petition sale of the

property to NLVK.” NLVK timely appealed. 

II.

In a bankruptcy matter, we review the bankruptcy court’s factual conclusions

for clear error and its legal conclusions de novo. In re Wick, 276 F.3d 412, 415 (8th

Cir. 2002). 

The foreclosure sale on Miller’s property occurred after Miller filed for

bankruptcy. Accordingly, the bankruptcy trustee could generally avoid the property

transfer pursuant to 11 U.S.C. § 549(a). NLVK contends, however, that this transfer

may not be avoided because it meets the requirements of 11 U.S.C. § 549(c). 11

U.S.C. § 549(c) states:

The trustee may not avoid under subsection (a) of this section a transfer

of an interest in real property to a good faith purchaser without

knowledge of the commencement of the case and for present fair

equivalent value unless a copy or notice of the petition was filed, where

a transfer of an interest in such real property may be recorded to perfect

such transfer, before such transfer is so perfected that a bona fide

purchaser of such real property, against whom applicable law permits

such transfer to be perfected, could not acquire an interest that is superior

to such interest of such good faith purchaser. A good faith purchaser

without knowledge of the commencement of the case and for less than

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present fair equivalent value has a lien on the property transferred to the

extent of any present value given, unless a copy or notice of the petition

was so filed before such transfer was so perfected.

The disputed issue in this case is whether NLVK paid “present fair equivalent value”

for Miller’s property. Miller concedes that NLVK meets all of the other requirements

for the safe harbor provision.

In BFP v. Resolution Trust Corp., 511 U.S. 531 (1994), the United States

Supreme Court discussed the meaning of “reasonably equivalent value” as used in 11

U.S.C. § 548. The Court held that the price paid by a third-party purchaser at a

foreclosure sale for real property was the reasonably equivalent value for that property

as long as all applicable state laws were complied with. Id. at 545. In T.F. Stone Co.

v. Harper, 72 F.3d 466 (5th Cir. 1995), the Fifth Circuit extended the reasoning in

BFP to § 549(c). Thus, it applied the Supreme Court’s holding from a case involving

a pre-bankruptcy petition mortgage foreclosure sale to a post-petition tax foreclosure

sale. No other circuit courts have considered this issue, and lower courts have split,

with the majority of them rejecting Stone. Compare In re Fulmer-Vaught, 218 B.R.

56 (Bankr. W.D. Mo. 1998) and In re McDonald, 210 B.R. 648 (Bankr. S.D. Fla.

1997) with In re Ford, 296 B.R. 537 (Bankr. N.D. Ga. 2003) and In re Glendenning,

243 B.R. 629, (Bankr. E.D. Pa. 2000). 

NLVK urges us to adopt the analysis in Stone. If we were to do so, NLVK

would prevail, regardless of how much it paid for the Miller property, because NLVK

purchased the property at a foreclosure sale that was conducted in accordance with

Nevada law. Upon a careful analysis of Stone, however, we believe that BFP should

not be extended to cases dealing with § 549.

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Section 549(c) serves as an exception to the automatic stay imposed when a

bankruptcy petition is filed, and, as such, it should be construed narrowly.

Glendenning, 243 B.R. at 636. Additionally, the phrase “present fair equivalent

value” is more exacting than “reasonably equivalent value.” Id. (“[M]ost . . . courts

that have considered the question [have found] that ‘fair present equivalent value’

under § 549(c) is not the equivalent of ‘reasonable equivalent value’ under 11 U.S.C.

§ 548(a)(2). Instead, the operative terminology of § 549(c) (‘fair present’) is

considerably more exacting than that of § 548(c)(2) (‘reasonable’), and for good

reason.”) “[T]he use of ‘present fair’ indicates an intent [by Congress] that the

protection of § 549(c) be limited to truly innocent purchasers who have actually paid

a fair price in the transaction.” Ford, 296 B.R. at 553. We also note that the BFP

Court took care to limit its holding to “mortgage foreclosures” saying “[t]he

considerations bearing upon other foreclosures and forced sales (to satisfy tax liens,

for example) may be different.” BFP, 511 U.S. at 537 n.3. The foreclosure in this

case was not a mortgage foreclosure, but rather one initiated by a homeowners’

association.

Because we find that BFP does not control this case, we must analyze the

amount paid by NLVK to determine if it constitutes present fair equivalent value.

Although NLVK paid only $3,847 for the property, it took the property subject to any

pre-existing liens. Golden v. Tomiyasu, 387 P.2d 989 (Nev. 1963). These included,

at a minimum, a mortgage of approximately $463,000. We agree with the courts

below that purchasing a property subject to a mortgage is not the same thing as

assuming the mortgage. It is only when a buyer assumes a mortgage that the buyer

becomes legally responsible for its payment. However, we believe that liens on a

property are relevant for determining the value paid for that property whether or not

those liens are legally assumed by the third-party purchaser.

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The following example illustrates our rationale. Consider a piece of real

property that has a fair market value of $500,000, but a first mortgage for $450,000

and a second mortgage for $10,000. If a third party purchased the property at a

foreclosure sale initiated by the junior lienholder, the property would be subject to the

initial $450,000 mortgage. Because the property is worth $500,000 but carries

$450,000 in debt, no purchaser would be likely to pay more than $50,000 at a

foreclosure sale. If we were to adopt the district court’s method of analysis and not

consider the liens on the property unless they are assumed or paid off, a third party

who purchased the property for $100,000 (well above the level of equity in the

property) would still not receive protection under § 549(c) because $100,000 is not

the present fair equivalent of the property’s fair market value of $500,000. 

Whether or not a purchaser chooses to legally assume the mortgage, the

purchaser cannot capture any equity in the home until the mortgage is assumed or paid

off because the senior lienholder maintains its right to foreclose. Therefore, it is

necessary to consider the total amount of all surviving liens on the property when

assessing whether NLVK paid present fair equivalent value for the property.

When the value of the liens on the property is considered, the question of

whether present fair equivalent value was paid is a much closer question. If the only

lien on the property is the mortgage of approximately $463,000, when combined with

NLVK’s out-of-pocket costs, the value paid for the property is $466,847. Using the

range of the property’s value provided by Miller, the value paid equals approximately

seventy-two to seventy-four percent of the property’s value. 

Because the courts below did not consider the amount of any liens on the

property in determining whether NLVK paid fair market value, those courts did not

need to determine the amount of those liens or the value of the property with

specificity. The courts instead made assumptions about the amount of the liens and

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the value of the property because it was clear that $3,847 could not be the present fair

equivalent value of a property whose value was anywhere close to Miller’s estimates

of $630,000 to $650,000. Thus, there are no factual findings regarding the exact

amount of the total liens on the property or the property’s exact value at the time of

the foreclosure. 

There are assertions in the record that Miller may be over-estimating the value

of the property and that there may be liens on the property beyond the mortgage. Both

parties’ appellate briefs focused on the questions of whether BFP was controlling and

whether pre-existing liens on the property should be considered with assessing

whether NLVK paid present fair equivalent value. Therefore, we cannot ascertain the

exact percentage of fair market value that NLVK paid. 

At least one court has held that seventy-three percent of fair market value does

not rise to the level of present fair equivalent value. In re Powers, 88 B.R. 294, 297

(Bankr. D. Nev. 1988). However, this case is not binding. Additionally, if the value

of the property at the time of the foreclosure sale was lower than Miller asserts, or if

there are liens on the property in addition to the mortgage, the percentage of fair

market value paid by NLVK may be substantially higher. Accordingly, we remand

for the district court to determine in the first instance whether present fair equivalent

value was paid for the property when the prior liens on the property are considered.

III.

For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the judgment of the district court and

remand for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

______________________________

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