Category: Real Property Law

White Oak Funding, Inc. v. Winning

ENVIRONMENTAL LIABILITY—Unintentionally allowing prior and unknown environmental contamination to migrate and spread underground does not constitute the “releasing” of hazardous substances under the Spill Act.

• Opinion Date: July 6, 2001

Hawthorne Realty Company v. Hawthorne Prints, Inc.

ENVIRONMENTAL LIABILITY—The mere fact that a tenant used a particular chemical found to be a pollutant at its leased property is not sufficient to make that tenant liable to its landlord where the landlord cannot prove that the tenant, and not prior occupants, was the actual source of the pollution.

• Opinion Date: April 5, 2001

AKC, Inc. v. Joel Opatut Family Trust

EMBLEMENTS—Under the law of emblements, unless the lease provides otherwise, a tenant may remove its trees, nursery, and other farm stock after the lease has ended, without the need to pay rent to its former landlord.

• Opinion Date: October 10, 2001

Hugerich v. Township of Lacey

EASEMENTS; PUBLIC ACCESS—A marginal roadway is not the equivalent of an easement area.

• Opinion Date: June 13, 2001

Pompton Lakes Borough MUA v. North Jersey Police Radio Association, Inc.

EASEMENTS—An easement allowing a certain use “as presently constituted” looks to the way in which the easement was used at the time of the grant and not the intensity of its use for that purpose.

• Opinion Date: December 10, 2001

Nob Hill at Somerset - 204 Single Family Homes Homeowners Association, Inc. v. Kusmick

EASEMENTS—Where a right of access is shown on a subdivision map even if not described in a recorded declaration, neighboring property owners are entitled to enjoy the benefit of a corresponding right of way.

• Opinion Date: September 27, 2001

Cadiz v. Karolasz

EASEMENTS—Just because a common driveway created by a deed, though wide enough for vehicular passage, becomes too narrow for parking vehicles, doesn’t mean that the easement “to create a party driveway” must be extinguished.

• Opinion Date: July 19, 2001

State of New Jersey v. Scott

DWELLINGS—For purposes of the criminal trespass statutes, a vacant residential home that is available and suitable for rental and occupancy is a “dwelling.”

• Opinion Date: July 24, 2001

In re Riverview Towers Holding Corp. v. Pepe

COOPERATIVES; CONVERSION—The Court will not strictly construe the requirement that the notice of conversion appear as the first paragraph of a lease; equity permits substantial compliance with that statutory requirement.

• Opinion Date: July 2, 2001

Spiegelman v. 2100 Linwood Avenue Owners, Inc.

COOPERATIVES—Upon a shareholder’s material breach of a proprietary lease, a cooperative housing corporation can terminate the lease and repurchase the owner’s shares, but upon resale, the shareholder is entitled to any excess proceeds.

• Opinion Date: June 11, 2001