Opinion ID: 2326968
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Condominium Fees Surviving a Tax Lien

Text: On appeal, the plaintiffs first argue that pursuant to First NH Bank, 138 N.H. at 323, 639 A.2d 1089, when they took title to the land, they took a 100 percent common and undivided interest in the property, RSA 80:61, thereby stripping away all encumbrances upon it, including condominium assessments and fees. We disagree. RSA 80:61, upon which the court in First NH Bank relied, reads in pertinent part: An affidavit of the execution of the tax lien to the municipality, county or state shall be delivered to the municipality by the tax collector on the day following the last date for payment of taxes. . . . The collector shall execute to the municipality, county or state only a 100 percent common and undivided interest in the property and no portion thereof shall be executed in severalty by metes and bounds; provided, however, that where distinct interests in the property have been separately assessed pursuant to RSA 75:2, the tax lien executed to the municipality, county, or state shall be for 100 percent of the separate distinct interest upon which the taxes have not been fully paid. In First NH Bank, we held that mortgages did not have priority over tax liens and that such encumbrances are divested at the issuance of the tax lien when the right of redemption expires. Id. at 324, 639 A.2d 1089. It is true that a new and independent title to one hundred percent of the land . . . is the ultimate product of the tax lien procedure. Id. This case, however, does not deal with a mortgage interest; it concerns condominium covenants. Condominium declarations are covenants running with the land. 15A Am.Jur.2d Condominiums and Cooperative Apartments § 7 (2002); see LaSalle Nat. Trust v. Board of Directors, 287 Ill. App.3d 449, 222 Ill.Dec. 579, 677 N.E.2d 1378, 1382, appeal denied, 174 Ill.2d 565, 227 Ill.Dec. 7, 686 N.E.2d 1163 (1997); In re Beeter, 173 B.R. 108 (Bankr.W.D.Tex. 1994). The condominium declaration covenants and the estate in land upon which they are imposed are literally inseparable. 15A Am.Jur.2d, supra. Each condominium owner finds [his or her] estate both burdened by the assessment obligation and benefited by the function that the assessments serve (namely, the maintenance and preservation of the common areas, in which the [plaintiffs have] an undivided interest inseparable from [their] interest in the condominium unit itself). In re Beeter, 173 B.R. at 115. Condominium covenants sink their tentacles into the soil. Id. at 114 n. 6. The question of whether condominium covenants survive a tax sale is novel in this jurisdiction. Generally, an easement or covenant is an interest in land separate from and `carved out' of a servient estate; in the majority of jurisdictions it survives a tax sale. . . . Thirteen South v. Summit Village, 109 Nev. 1218, 866 P.2d 257, 259 (1993); see also Schlafly v. Baumann, 341 Mo. 755, 108 S.W.2d 363, 368 (1937); Northwestern Improvement Co. v. Lowry, 104 Mont. 289, 66 P.2d 792, 795-96 (1937); Alamogordo Improvement Co. v. Prendergast, 43 N.M. 245, 91 P.2d 428, 431-32 (1939); Annotation, Easement, Servitude, or Covenant as Affected by Sale for Taxes 7 A.L.R.5th 187, 203 (1992) (collecting cases). Although we have not ruled on the survival of covenants in New Hampshire, we have held that easements survive a sale for taxes. See Gowen v. Swain, 90 N.H. 383, 386-87, 10 A.2d 249 (1939). Consistent with established authority in this and other jurisdictions we hold that the plaintiffs took title subject to the condominium covenants that ran with the land.