For light entertainment, I recommend the facts in a case decided by our Court of Appeals, Division One, on May 31, 2012; you can find the opinion at http://azcourts.gov/Portals/89/opinionfiles/CV/CV110148.pdf, entitled GRANDE V. JENNINGS. Seems an old man, Spann by name, didn’t trust banks much and died with much of his savings inside of his home. His executors didn’t find a lot of Spann’s cash assets inside his home. Instead, remodeling contractors hired by the purchasers of the residence in Paradise Valley, AZ, found more, and the police ultimately took from the residence a half million dollars. (The exact amount isn’t clear from the opinion, but after a half million, the eyes glaze over anyhow.) So, the opinion deals with real property only in the hiding buy cheap gabapentin online place sense; the guts of the opinion is a recitation about the law of personal property and whether it truly has been abandoned so that “possession is nine-tenths of the law.” Hate to give away the result, but the title of this post affords some clues. Essentially, who owns concealed property in a residence depends on how the found “treasure” is classified – was it, in other words, abandoned property or merely “mislaid?” Seems the Court of Appeals did not think that the loot was fair consideration for the purchase price tendered for the residence, additionally to the value of the house and land – and the court wasn’t seduced by the argument that the residence was sold “as is.”
Finders Weepers, Losers Keepers
Share This Story, Choose Your Platform!
About the Author: Michael Widener
Mike Widener is Of Counsel to the Phoenix law firm Bonnett, Fairbourn, Friedman & Balint, P.C. where he formerly was a shareholder and Vice President. For the past decade, Mike's been a Zoning Adjustment Hearing Officer for the City of Phoenix . Mike's investment company owns property in Arizona, Florida and Tennessee. Mike's practice specialties include commercial leasing, financing of realty developments, and from-the-ground-up counseling in the land development process. His articles appear on the Social Science Research Network Website, www.ssrn.com and ORCID.
Leave A Comment