Category: Real Property Law

Saadala v. East Brunswick Zoning Board of Adjustment,

ZONING; VARIANCES — Variance applications for new uses are subject to more restrictive standards than such applications are for prior non-conforming uses; for example, an applicant under the former circumstances must show that either the general welfare is served because the proposed use is particularly fitted to the location or that undue hardships exist because the property cannot be reasonably adapted to a conforming use.

• Opinion Date: April 22, 2010

Holobeam, Inc. v. Tandy Corporation

LEASES; ASSIGNMENTS — If the settlement made between a landlord and a defaulting assignee-tenant is reasonable, then the assignee-tenant’s assignor will be liable for the remaining rent damages following default by the assignee.

• Opinion Date: March 25, 2010

Trunell v. Trust for Hazel Harrison

EASEMENTS — A property is not truly inaccessible to the extent that it would be entitled to a prescriptive easement if its owner has had access to the property, for a very long time, over a road to which it had no formal right to use but where it was never blocked from using that road.

• Opinion Date: March 16, 2010

The Lighthouse Institute for Evangelism v. The City of Long Branch

ZONING; RLUIPA — The Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 provides for damages when a municipality improperly denies land use approval to a house of worship, but the damages cannot cover a period prior to the date that a house of worship actually applied for permission to use its property as such.

• Opinion Date: April 13, 2010

34 Label Street Associates v. R.C. Search Co., Inc.

LEASES; EVICTION — If an eviction complaint is based on the tenant’s unlawfully holding over after the expiration of a lease, the issue as to the correct amount of rent to be paid under the lease is irrelevant.

• Opinion Date: April 8, 2010

Borough of Paramus v. Shamrock Creek, L.L.C.

MOUNT LAUREL; DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENTS — There are public policy considerations to bar enforcement of an unrecorded development agreement with respect to development.

• Opinion Date: March 30, 2010

Griglak v. CTX Mortgage Company, LLC

TILA; RESPA; STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS — Even where a claimant exercised reasonable diligence in investigating its claim, equitable tolling of a statute of limitation, including under RESPA and the TILA, is appropriate only where the alleged wrongful actor actively misled the claimant regarding the cause of action or where a claimant, in some extraordinary way, was prevented from asserting its rights, or where the claimant timely asserted its rights, but in a wrong form.

• Opinion Date: April 8, 2010

1952 Union Valley Road, L.L.C. v. Adelo Corporation

EASEMENTS — When the buyer of a property is well aware that a neighbor had cleared, paved, and maintained a portion of the buyer’s property and did nothing to stop it, an easement by estoppel is appropriate but, if the arrangement made by the predecessor owner was based on a personal relationship with the neighbor, the granting of such an easement in perpetuity is inappropriate.

• Opinion Date: March 30, 2010

Cotter v. Newark Housing Authority

CONTRACTS — Even if a governing body adopts a resolution approving a sale of its property, if a prospective buyer only has an unsigned draft agreement and correspondence between the prospective buyer and the governmental body evidences that there were negotiations toward a deal, but do not evidence that either party ever signed a contract or that the governmental authority had agreed to its terms, the prospective buyer cannot sustain a breach of contract claim.

• Opinion Date: March 17, 2010

N.J. Bergen Development Co., LLC v. Fleisher

CONTRACTS; CONTINGENCIES — Where a contract of sale gives the buyer specific remedies upon its seller’s default, and those remedies do not include tolling of approval or contingency periods, the buyer is not permitted to delay its performance under the contract based on the seller’s defaults or even by reason of the seller’s bad faith efforts to avoid fulfilling its contractual obligations.

• Opinion Date: March 19, 2010