Boca Raton Land Development, Inc. v. Sparling
| Decision Date | 13 May 1981 |
| Docket Number | No. 80-1050,80-1050 |
| Citation | 397 So.2d 1053 |
| Parties | BOCA RATON LAND DEVELOPMENT, INC., Appellant, v. John B. SPARLING and George H. Sparling, III, Appellees. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Joel D. Kenwood of Baskin & Sears, Palm Beach, for appellant.
Robert A. Eisen of Reynolds & Marchbanks, Boca Raton, for appellees.
Boca Raton Land Development, Inc. (hereafter the corporation) began this proceeding as an interlocutory appeal from an order of the trial court discharging a lis pendens. John B. Sparling and George H. Sparling, III, filed a motion to strike the interlocutory appeal. This court denied the motion, but ordered that the matter proceed as a petition for writ of certiorari. Cooper Village Inc. v. Moretti, 383 So.2d 705 (Fla. 4th DCA 1980).
The corporation filed an action in the circuit court to quiet its title to certain described real property. The complaint describes the manner in which the corporation asserts it deraigned title to said property and claims that it is the lawful owner thereof. The complaint goes on to allege that Lawrence W. Urbanek, purporting to act as the corporation's president, fraudulently executed a deed conveying the property to himself; however, Urbanek never was the president of the corporation, and the conveyance was without authority or consideration. Finally, the complaint alleges that the Sparlings were mere nominees for Urbanek and that the Sparlings knew, or should have known, of the fraud perpetrated by Urbanek.
Upon filing the complaint, the corporation also filed a notice of lis pendens. Several months after the suit was commenced the Sparlings filed a motion to discharge the notice of lis pendens. After a hearing on said motion at which George Sparling III, testified the court entered an order discharging the lis pendens. These proceedings followed.
The authority governing the filing and discharge of a lis pendens is Section 48.23, Florida Statutes (1979). The statute provides essentially that no action in any state or federal court operates as a lis pendens until a notice of the action is recorded in the office of the clerk of the circuit court of the county wherein the property is located. The filing of an appropriate notice constitutes a bar to the enforcement against the property of any liens and levies unrecorded at the time of the filing of the notice of lis pendens unless a lienholder intervenes in the cause. A notice of lis pendens is effective for a period of one year "unless the relief sought is disclosed by the initial pleading to be founded on a duly recorded instrument, or on a mechanic's lien claimed against the property involved except when the court extends the time on reasonable notice and for good cause shown." Section 48.23(2), Florida Statutes (1979). When the initial pleading does not show the action was founded on...
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Kent v. Kent
...lis pendens warrants further discussion because I agree with the dissenting view of Judge Anstead in Boca Raton Land Development, Inc. v. Sparling, 397 So.2d 1053, 1054 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981). There is a good and simple reason for the distinction made by Section 48.23(3), Fla.Stat. (1981), bet......
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American Legion Community Club v. Diamond
...taken this view in Chapman. We note that the Fourth and Fifth District Courts expressed this view in Boca Raton Land Development, Inc. v. Sparling, 397 So.2d 1053 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981), and Florida Peach Corp. v. Lurie, 411 So.2d 339 (Fla. 5th DCA 1982); however, in Berkley Multi-Units and Mo......
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Berkley Multi-Units, Inc. v. Linder
...& N Grove, Inc., 244 So.2d 154 (Fla. 2d DCA 1971), represent the contrary view, as does our own case of Boca Raton Land Development, Inc. v. Sparling, 397 So.2d 1053 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981). To the extent that Sparling is inconsistent with the views expressed in this opinion we recede The prese......
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Florida Peach Corp. of America, Intern. Division, S.A. v. Lurie
...and, therefore, petitioner is entitled to the maintenance of the lis pendens as a matter of right. Cf. Boca Raton Land Dev., Inc. v. Sparling, 397 So.2d 1053 (Fla. 4th DCA 1981). Since the lis pendens is based on duly recorded instruments, the trial court departed from the essential require......