Case Law Summaries

Township of Dover v. Moreno

• Opinion Date: December 27, 2001
• Real Property Law
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TAX SALES; EQUITY—Where a taxing authority sends a “mixed message” to a delinquent taxpayer, a court does not abuse its discretion in vacating a foreclosure judgment, even if the application to vacate is untimely made.

Even though property owners made an out of time application to reopen a judgment of foreclosure entered pursuant to the In Rem Tax Foreclosure Act, the lower court, exercising its equitable authority, concluded that in the “limited circumstance[s]” and on “these precise facts” it would grant relief to the property owners, “but only upon the condition that ‘the Town be made whole with regard to every item of expense and with regard to every tax dollar including every penny of interest… .’ The municipality appealed the lower court’s vacation of the foreclosure judgment. Prior case law makes it “clear that an application to reopen a judgment, including a judgment of tax foreclosure, is a matter of practice and procedures subject to the rule-making power of the Supreme Court.” Essentially, “[a] judge has the inherent authority to grant relief from foreclosure under the proper circumstances.” In this case, the lower court believed that the municipality had “sent mixed singles to the [property owners] concerning the status of their property” and was satisfied that the municipality “had acted inconsistently and misled” the property owners. Therefore, according to the Appellate Division, “it was not unreasonable for the [property owners] to believe [it] remained the property owners even when they actually no longer had that status.” For that reason, the Court affirmed the order vacating the judgment of foreclosure.

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