Property Law Developments—Joseph William Singer

In Young v. Ledford, 37 So. 3d 832 (Ala. Ct. Civ. App. 2009), an Alabama court held that an owner could not remove the half of a tree that sat on his property without killing it and that the owner could not destroy the entire tree without the neighbor’s consent. The landowner claimed that the tree was dangerous and might fall on the owner’s house and the court noted that it is possible an exception might be granted in such cases of boundary trees when they constitute a nuisance.

In Perlas v. GMAC Mortgage, 113 Cal. Rptr. 3d 790 (Ct. App. 2010), a bank made $417,000 worth of loans to borrowers with a gross income of only $50,000. Although that income was inadequate to make the mortgage payments, and the bank found that the borrower “qualified” for the loan, the court held that the bank did not engage in fraud. Qualification, the judge noted, does not imply affordability and the bank had no duty to the borrower to disclose the fact that the borrowers could not afford to make the loan payments. Contract this case with Commonwealth v. Fremont, 897 N.E.2d 548 (Mass. 2008) which held that granting such a loan might constitute an “unfair” practice in violation of the state consumer protection statute.