Year in Review — Texas Real Estate Law Changes in 2023

Episode Notes

Transcript

Speaker 1:

Welcome to the State Bar of Texas podcast, your monthly source for conversations and curated content to improve your law practice with your host Rocky Dhir.

Rocky Dhir:

Ah, the holidays. The holidays are when the whole family gets together and I decide to show up Anyway, it’s a time when we slow down, spend time with relatives and hanker to get back to the office and away from them. I’m joking of course, or am I? Whatever your holiday plans guys remember, December is often a time to look back at the year that is winding down, take stock of what transpired, and then get into a fresh mindset for a new year here at the state bar, we do just that every December with our year-End review edition of the Texas Bar Journal. The magazine is chockfull of updates and summaries across a myriad of practice areas. As you your December bar Journal, you just might miss the summary of real estate law because it’s concise and it’s succinctly written, but I strongly suggest you make an effort to read it.

Real estate has been on fire in Texas for many years now. As lawyers, it behooves us and our clients for us to know a thing or two about this area of law that is literally right under our noses at all times. To walk us through real estate law in 2023, we have the Author of the Year-End Review article, Roland Love to Real Estate Lawyers in Texas. Roland requires no introduction. He was recognized with the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2022 by the State Bar of Texas Real Estate Probate and Trust Law section. But don’t let the Lifetime Achievement Award fool you. Roland is far from retired. He still serves as chair of the state Bar’s Real Estate Forms Committee while serving on the boards of the Texas Title Examination Standards Board and the Texas Land Title Association. Who better to help us look back and look forward. So Roland, welcome to the podcast.

Roland Love:

Well, good morning. I’m glad to be here.

Rocky Dhir:

Absolutely. So real estate’s been busy. Let’s step back for a second. You’ve been practicing law for a while. The lifetime Achievement Award gives it away even though you have a full head of hair and I’m jealous, but let’s talk for a second about your interest in real estate law. What got you into this?

Roland Love:

Well, I think probably the same as anybody else. As a young lawyer, I was looking for a way to generate business really. We had a couple of matters in the firm and no one else, no one wanted to take ’em on, and I dove into it and I loved it. It’s problem solving fits with my background. I studied engineering and undergraduate and it’s just been great. I just cannot complain. Been a wonderful career

Rocky Dhir:

For law students who might be interested in real estate law because I’ll admit to you, when I was in law school, all we talked about all the time was Litigation, maybe the smattering of mergers and acquisitions, but real estate was never something that was really emphasized in law school. So in case we got folks that are kind of intrigued or maybe lawyers who want to make a career change, what are some of the opportunities in real estate law? I mean obviously there’s real estate Litigation, but there’s a lot more than that, so could you walk us through what those opportunities are?

Roland Love:

Well, there’s a lot you can do. Like I said, it is a problem solving practice. It’s the opportunity to know about dirt law, but also you need to know family law entities, business organizations, bankruptcy, estate. It’s just wonderful in the sense that there are so many disciplines that fit under one umbrella and real estate is a wealth building asset, as you kind of noted Rocky. It’s the only thing they’re not making more of, so there’s always going to be real estate being transferred. So there’s so many ways other than real estate, Litigation, as you mentioned, real estate finance of course is a very strong practice area, but also just transactional loan transactions. Again, estate planning, conveyances within families. There’s so much that you can do in the area of real estate law, and so I would recommend it to anybody that enjoys that. Kind of taking what people need, finding a resolution, solving that problem, and putting a deal together.

Rocky Dhir:

I’ll tell you one of the challenges for me, and it’s not just in real estate, it’s stocks and options and mergers and acquisitions. There’s all these terms that are, I think folks assume you know what the meaning of it is and oftentimes you don’t. When you go buy a house, they throw terms at you and half the time, I don’t know what it means. I have to Google it. Is there a good primer, either a book or a website or something you’d recommend for folks to be able to go and just familiarize themselves with some of the overarching concepts maybe in real estate?

Roland Love:

Well, the estate bar puts on each summer a real estate 1 0 1 program that’s about as good as it gets. Certainly walks through a lot of the primary concepts for a beginning lawyer, Texas Land Title Association has a commitment to closing program that’s a one day that’s really excellent for a young lawyer to understand title and title insurance and getting the deal closed. And there’s a lot of state bar CLE papers whether you join the rep, the real estate probate and trust law section or just do the state bar, CLE.

Rocky Dhir:

It’s called reptile. That’s cool. That’s cool.

Roland Love:

Reptiles. Yeah. Yeah,

Rocky Dhir:

It’s a reptile brain. I love it.

Roland Love:

It is, and it’s an interesting section of the state bar because it includes both real estate and estate planning attorneys, which in most practices, those are going to cross over each other, particularly if you’re in a smaller or rural or small town small practice. There’s a wealth of resources through the state bar. Obviously you can always Google stuff, but that’s where I’d start. I think there’s some great materials there and I would attend one of those CLEs or you can also get ’em online. They’re available online.

Rocky Dhir:

There’s the state bar’s Real Estate 1 0 1, and then you said the Texas Land Title Association,

Roland Love:

Texas Land Title Association in December has a really good program. This is for beginning lawyers. There’s also more advanced and then there’s an advanced real estate drafting program in March. It’s just really great too. Certainly if you’re wanting to do transactional or documents, the real estate forms manual little plug there. It is awesome. It can really guide you through what you need. It has more than just forms. It has explanations and references. That can be really helpful.

Rocky Dhir:

Speaking of the Texas Land title Association, I’m going to give a quick shout out to Aaron Day. He’s the council and he and I went to high school together, so we’ve known each other a long time, so

Roland Love:

Well, no kidding. Yeah,

Rocky Dhir:

Please don’t ask him to tell you anything about me from that time period.

Roland Love:

So that tells me you’re from Fort Worth, right?

Rocky Dhir:

Arlington. We both grew up in Arlington. We went to Martin High School in Arlington. Go Warriors. So good stuff. Roland, we do need to talk about these cases, the ones that you picked out. Before we do though we’re going to get a quick word from one of our sponsors and when we come back, we’re going to dive right into the year end review and talk a bit about what happened and then what may lie ahead. So guys, stay tuned. We’ll be right back and we are back with Roland Love as we look back at 2023 and real estate law, what landed and what didn’t. But speaking of which Roland wrote a year in review article. What I found interesting was of the entire world of real estate law, you picked four cases that you showcased a lot of times these year in review articles are 7, 8, 10 cases. You picked four. What was your process for selecting those?

Roland Love:

We really didn’t have that many cases this year, surprisingly, probably because the legislature was in session. That always limits the number of case opinions, but I looked for Supreme Court cases and I looked for Supreme Court cases that were in 2023 and then I looked for cases that I thought might present a surprise to the practitioner that I would not want to get caught and I could see myself getting caught. I always look for something as this is something you really ought to know so you don’t end up on the wrong end of a question. So I picked out three that I thought or something every real estate lawyer ought to know and they weren’t necessarily intuitive. That’s how I arrived at.

Rocky Dhir:

So I have to admit reading these as a non-real estate lawyer with a couple of ’em, I was like, wait, what’s the big deal? And so we’re going to talk about that. You can kind of enlighten us. So let’s go in order. First you start off with PNC mortgage versus Howard, and I’ll be honest, this one confused me a little bit as a non practitioner, so let’s go step by step.

Roland Love:

It is confusing if you’re a bank lawyer representing a bank and you’re dealing with real estate lending, this is one to really be careful with because this is a common practice. The bank made a loan, it was a refinance of two prior loans, and then the borrower discontinued or defaulted on the loan at the same time. The bank took steps to accelerate and give notice to default and accelerate the note, which basically brings the note due and then I guess the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand’s doing. The note was assigned to another lender, and then the assigning lender, the original lender went ahead and foreclosed, bought the property at foreclosure and sold the property. Now they didn’t own the note, did they? The note had been assigned to another bank, and so the borrower sued to set aside the foreclosure and was successful because I can’t foreclose on your property if I don’t own the note.

At that time, the PNC, which was the purchasing or the assignee lender decided, well, I’m going to sue on the note. Well guess what? It was more than four years. And so limitations barred down from collecting on the note. And so then they argued subrogation to the earlier note and deeded of trust, and the Supreme Court pointed out that subrogation is just to the lien that when the note was accelerated and then now barred that it was no longer in existence, a refinance note disappears. It’s been replaced. So the Supreme Court held that you could not be equitably subed to the prior lien and when the note had been extinguished and no longer existed. So subrogation basically that comes out is subrogation is a concept used by lawyers all the time. If there’s a problem with the new deeded of trust, you subrogate back to the prior remedy to that lien. But if there’s no debt obligation, there’s nothing to enforce. And that’s really the takeaway here, that if you’re assigning notes or pledging them or selling them, make sure the foreclosure guys or the default guys understand that we don’t own the note anymore and we can’t proceed.

Rocky Dhir:

What struck me with this as I’m reading through the summary is that it sounds like the assigning bank, either whether it was negligence or whether it was some form of recklessness, it sounds like they might’ve committed some type of fraud in effect because they assign the note and then PNC ends up with this note that they can’t really do anything with because the other bank foreclosed on it and now four years has passed. It sounds like PNC was kind of victimized in this, but I dunno if I’m reading that wrong.

Roland Love:

I mean I don’t see it as a fraud. I mean, fraud requires an intent to deceive. I don’t think there was any intent to deceive here. I think this was, again, you can only speculate, it’s probably a lack of checks and balances, a lack of communication. PNC was the purchaser. They were waiting for the signing lender to take care of things. They waited too long. The signing lender should have never foreclosed because they had sold a note. So there was really, it’s more a failure. Think of the lenders to communicate and we see larger lenders. It is a struggle for everybody within the lending organization to stay in touch and know what each other’s doing. And here you not only had within one lender, but you had between lenders, and that’s kind of, I think where it goes is better communication had PNC act, PNC is not the original lender.

PNC could have acted sooner to collect on the note instead of waiting to see how the underlying lawsuit turned out. So they kind of got caught up in time, just time ran on them before they took a proper action. And then of course, this case arises out of the effort to salvage the situation and that was unsuccessful. It’s a good lesson in equitable subrogation. I don’t know. It’s very clear to everybody or has been clear in the case law that subrogation is equitable. Subrogation is only to the lien and the remedy and not to the debt. So that is a good takeaway. There’s a legal takeaway there. What

Rocky Dhir:

Does that mean for a non practitioner? It’s to the lien and not to the dead.

Roland Love:

Well, so in Texas in particularly, I sign a note, I have an obligation to pay the money back. I secure that pledge or that promise with a deeded of trust or a security instrument or some other mortgage, which is really just saying that if I don’t pay, I’m pledging this collateral or whatever I might have. It could be stock, not necessarily real estate. It could be anything but I’m pledging something in the event I don’t pay. And you can Mr. Linder come after the collateral and foreclose on it, have a public auction, maybe somebody will buy it. Usually the lender buys it, buy a credit bid, and so they end up holding that as an offset against the debt. Oftentimes it is equal to the debt. Sometimes it’s less. Sometimes it can be more so that we have some equity in the situation going to the borrower, but so they end up with that equitable subrogation in turn allows me in the event that I am a subsequent refinancing type lender or an assignee to step into the shoes of that prior lender and use the remedy they had. So I maintain that priority. Basically. We’re trying to maintain priority. It’s a little more complicated area. Getting back directly to your question, I think the thing all of us, we buy a house, we sign a mortgage, you hear people in other states saying the bank owns a house, not in Texas. I have a note. I own the house and then I have a deeded of trust or a mortgage which is there to secure my repayment of the debt. So that’s how it works for us here in Texas. Got

Rocky Dhir:

It. You in your summary of PNC that the Supreme Court of Texas held at the acceleration of the note, the acceleration by the original lender extinguished, the original note, leaving PNC with only a security interest in the property. And I guess that goes back to what you’re saying that

Roland Love:

I should clarify that a little bit. Basically the foreclosure on the note, so the acceleration made it due time to pay when I foreclosed on it, that certainly extinguished that note. So theoretically had that note, but I accelerated it. Basically that’s the key date here that applies is suddenly it was due whether that note was owned by the lender or owned by the signee PNC limitations started. Right. So whoever had the note had four years to foreclose on it. PNC didn’t do that,

Rocky Dhir:

But the original lender didn’t have the right to accelerate in the first place. They had already sold it, so

Roland Love:

Well, no, the acceleration occurred just before they sold.

Rocky Dhir:

Oh, I see. Okay.

Roland Love:

Yeah. So I tried to probably make, maybe this was too succinct, huh? So one hand’s over here, accelerating clearing, default accelerating, and then the other part of the bank is selling the note. That’s why they had no right to foreclose because they had accelerated it, but then they had sold it and then they went and foreclosed, but they didn’t hold the note anymore so they could not

Rocky Dhir:

So limitations began to run once they accelerated. Correct. But the foreclosure itself was invalid, which is effectively what this fact pattern tells us

Roland Love:

About because I had given that note or signed that note in between and only the note holder can foreclose.

Rocky Dhir:

Theoretically. Would PNC have a claim against the original lender?

Roland Love:

They might. That would depend on the documentation and how that assignment was accomplished. It might be without recourse. I would think most banks probably sell debt without recourse, but we don’t know the details of that transaction. That would be the good backstory.

Rocky Dhir:

I guess it remains to be seen whether such a claim is asserted by PNC.

Roland Love:

Yeah, and it probably wouldn’t the case. It wouldn’t make the case law two banks like that are going to work it out typically.

Rocky Dhir:

Right. Obviously you picked this case for a reason as part of your summary. What do you think this PNC case means for the future of real estate and real estate law in Texas?

Roland Love:

Well, it’s going to go to those practitioners that are either refinancing, particularly maybe taking an assignment like this situation, but equitable subrogation is there as long as the note is alive. And if I’ve got some problem with my deeded of trust or more often I’ve got a priority issue, then I can subrogate to that. Prior subrogation just means I step into the shoes, the prior party, and since I’ve bought that note, I have those rights to step into their shoes and I can enforce that earlier deeded of trust or whatever remedy security agreement or whatever it is in the event that I’m not able to protect all my rights with the existing deeded of trust. So this really makes it clear note’s got to be in effect. And I’m only when I plead equitable subrogation, if it’s a refi situation so that the note’s been restructured or something, I’m not stepping into the shoes of the note holder, I’m stepping into the shoes of the security interest. I can use that deed of trust or whatever it was, but I can’t in this situation. I think PNC was trying to argue that, well, that original note was a 30 year note, and so it’s still alive and I can sue on that. And that’s where the acceleration got in. The way the acceleration made it currently due and payable.

Rocky Dhir:

It sounds like maybe when banks are refinancing in Texas, they’re going to have to put some additional conditions so that that way it protects the ASEE from a situation like

Roland Love:

This. That’s a good point, and I don’t know if it would be available. I suppose you could get a rep from the assigned ore that they still own the note and has not been accelerated that would’ve solved this problem.

Rocky Dhir:

Presumably. Looking back, Roland, let’s take another ad break here. We’re going to hear from another sponsor and then we’re going to come back and talk about Lenivy and Mitchell, both also very juicy cases. So guys, stay tuned. Let’s listen to a sponsor and we’re going to come back with more from Roland Love. And ladies and gentlemen, we are back with Roland Love. We’re talking about real estate law in 2023. Now we’ve just talked about the PNC case. There was a lot to unpack there. Now we’re going to get to the other cases that Roland mentioned in his year in review article. First we’ve got Lennar Homes of Texas versus Whiteley. Now tell me if I’m wrong, Roland, this seemed like a simpler holding to me. Effectively, an arbitration provision can run with the land and be binding on subsequent owners. Is that the graph of it or did I miss it?

Roland Love:

No, I think that’s really the takeaway. I think many real estate lawyers would’ve said that an agreement to arbitrate does not touch the land and therefore cannot run with the land. That that was a personal agreement between a seller and buyer. Just because Lennar made it part of its deeded, it would’ve been easy to make a conclusion. And the court of appeals did that. This does not run with the land. This is just a private agreement. It doesn’t benefit the land. And the Supreme Court in turn said, yes, it can run with the land. And they held that under this direct benefits doctrine, which I’ll tell you that’s a new one for me. And I think it was a new one for a lot of people. And kudos to the law firm. They did an excellent presentation at the advanced real estate this last summer about that case.

It’s an interesting doctrine as the subsequent purchaser, which was Whiteley. They were not part to the purchase and sale agreement. They were not a party to the arbitration agreement. But of course, this was in that deeded in their chain of title and they were bound by it because they benefited from the warranties that were set out in the original transaction. So Lennar has a extensive warranty, it has limitations, requirements and all that. And then part of that warranty is that you have to arbitrate any disputes or disagreements. And because Wiley benefited from that warranty situation in the original transaction, they were bound by this covenant running with the land open. Some other questions. What about when Whitely sells the property to someone else? Are they going to also be bound based on the court’s ruling? I think they’ve said that as you started with Rocky, that it can run with the land. So if this is going to run with the land and I choose, of course at some point the statute of repose or limitations will kick in and Lennar will no longer have any responsibility as a builder, but certainly Lennar will have that ability to arbitrate a dispute down the road as long as somebody is suing them as the builder.

Rocky Dhir:

Does this effectively mean that there are no limits to what can run with land in Texas?

Roland Love:

Yeah. Well that is a good question, isn’t it? I would hope that there are limits, and I hope this one is unique to the nature of the transaction, but I do think that we will see more builders, particularly track builders like Lennar, putting this kind of provision in their deeded because they do. The builders have very extensive warranty programs. I think buyers purchase the property knowing that they’ve got a substantial or reputable builder behind the warranties and they know what that transaction is. And that’s in the deeded. Now is a covenant that runs with the land. Does that go further? I hope not. I mean, really covenants that run with the land ought to touch the land, and there’s a good argument that this one does not touch the land.

Rocky Dhir:

It’s interesting though because then you also noted that the subcontractors that Lenar hired were not part of that arbitration provision, so they could be sued in court even though technically the warranties themselves touch the work of the subcontractors. The subcontractors do not get the benefit of the arbitration provision that runs with the land. So the direct benefit doctrine doesn’t extend to everybody who worked on the property. It seems a little disjointed, but

Roland Love:

It does. And I think it’s probably remains to be developed a little bit. But remember the purchaser or an owner that enters into a contract with a builder, a general contractor, their relationship is with that general contractor, not with whomever the contractor may hire as subcontractors to do the work. That’s a relationship between the general contractor and the subcontractors. And you can really extend this even further to the, I mean, our whole mechanics lien law is recognizes that failure to have a contractual relationship with a subcontractor. But if a subcontractor provides value to a piece of property as a state, through our constitution and our property code, we have determined to give them a right to file a mechanic’s lien claim. And I’m getting a little bit off, but I think the same concept applies here. As a purchaser of the property, I do not have a relationship. I do not have a contractual relationship to the subcontractors. And so if I have a complaint about the property, my claim is against the general contractor or the seller. So that’s the distinction here.

Rocky Dhir:

But we see so many cases where the property owner will sue the general contractor and whichever subcontractor or subcontractors the owner thinks might’ve been responsible for this defect or this problem. So even though there may not be a direct contractual relationship, I guess it’s some form of privity that’s being argued.

Roland Love:

Well, probably I think you would have to argue more in the line of a tort. So negligence or the workplace wasn’t safe or you came in and destroyed another party’s work, something to that effect as opposed to a contractual claim.

Rocky Dhir:

Yeah, not a contractual claim. You mentioned this earlier. You were saying the article that there’s some debate being generated by this case. It’s holding about what can run with the land. I suppose the debate is about what precisely should and shouldn’t run with the land. Is that where the debate is or is it something else?

Roland Love:

No, I think that’s totally accurate. What can I now put in my deed that I make the transfer convey and subject to and indicate that it is a covenant that runs with the land and binding upon successors and the signs and errors. What is the limit? What can I put in there? What’s appropriate? So maybe I’m over alarmed. This will just be a one-off. I don’t think so. It’s always a discussion of what can I make run with the land. And parties will generally put language in the deed to make it clear what they intend runs with the land.

Rocky Dhir:

We could talk about this all day. This is actually much more fascinating than I think most folks would realize, just looking at a blurb of the case. Now moving on to Mitchell versus map resources. This one, honestly, it didn’t shock me that much, but it obviously warranted inclusion. So effectively, if I’m reading it correctly, you cannot serve Vieth posting at the courthouse door if there is an address or contact information in public records.

Roland Love:

So this is the one that scared me the most because it’s 20 years old. I mean, this is something that happened 20 years ago, and the court allowed the heirs to set aside a tax sale based upon a judgment that was attained by a service or citation, Vieth posting. That’s not good. Obviously, if I know where the person is, one of the things I say when I serve somebody by posting or by registered mail, whatever the court allows me, I say that I can’t find this person. So here we are 20 years later, original judgment debtor or the taxpayer has passed on and property was sold, and now we’ve got an heir seeking to set aside a sale that occurred 20 years ago. And so that’s a long time. And typically the subset for the litigator here is that when I do a bill of review to set aside a judgment, it’s limited in time and I’m only allowed to basically deal with what’s in the record.

And here the court accepted information and the public records that was not part of the court record or anything else 20 years later and found that this information was readily available and therefore this lady, the ancestor was not provided constitutional due process. So I don’t really doubt the finding of lack of due process as much as I do the passage of time and the going outside the record of what was in the court judgment. So it’s scary to me that I could serve somebody by citation, by posting or mail whatever the court authorized as alternative surface. And then 20 years later, let’s just say I screwed up, it was readily available and the yellow pages or whatever, and the court’s going to come in 20 years later and say, oh, you should have found that we’re going to set that aside.

Rocky Dhir:

So effectively it’s that there’s no time limit on a due process claim.

Roland Love:

I mean, you could go there. I mean, that’s a logical conclusion.

Rocky Dhir:

This case could be used now to kind of expand beyond just mere real estate and say, well, Supreme Court looked back 20 years later and found a due process violation.

Roland Love:

Of course it’s going to arise when there’s a lot of money involved and this one had minerals. So you could see that this could readily challenge. A lot of mineral leases are certainly tax sales, tax sales, and it’s just a scenario where a lot of folks are not available. They haven’t paid their taxes. Why are they not paying their taxes? I mean, they’re down on their luck or they’re gone or something. And so service by citation, by posting citation, it’s not unusual if I’ve got a tax sale in my chain of title, I might need to worry a little more. I don’t see it as much in other situations, but it certainly does happen, particularly in any kind of debtor situation. You often can’t find that debtor, and so you end up getting a judgment with substituted service. And then at foreclosure sale, I mean, off it goes, can a judgment debtor’s heir show up saying you should have served? I mean, Bob was easy to find,

Rocky Dhir:

But in a case like that, then the claim would be against the original foreclosure, not against the subsequent purses for value.

Roland Love:

Well, no, it’s going to be a trespass for title I’m going to claim. So yeah, it would be both. You would probably combine those two.

Rocky Dhir:

If I’m a landowner or if I’m going to go out and buy a piece of property, if I see a tax sale, I’ve got to go back and my lawyers and my representatives now have to see did that person get properly served? Otherwise I could end up having a claim.

Roland Love:

Yeah, better yet, my title insurance,

Rocky Dhir:

There’s that too,

Roland Love:

That too. Let somebody else screw with it, not me. I don’t want to have to be that. I don’t want to be the one examining whether service was adequate and rendering an opinion that could have that kind of passage of time and the dollars at play. That would just be almost an impossible task.

Rocky Dhir:

Finally, we talked about Pecos County Appraisal District versus I guess it’s, I dunno if it’s Iran or Iran. Sheffield. ISD.

Roland Love:

Yeah, I don’t know. I guess I should. I don’t know. I just put that one in there. I thought it was fun.

Rocky Dhir:

So the court was apparently pissed off at everybody.

Roland Love:

Yeah.

Rocky Dhir:

Why were they so pissed off?

Roland Love:

I don’t think that the court likes a lack of decorum, and certainly this case had plenty of that, but it’s humorous really. And I do also the court, I mean, every once in a while you see ’em reach out when they find something that is slightly humorous or more, and they will write about it or say they see an opportunity. And that’s fun for all of us. That practice law to see the court show a sense of humor, which the Supreme Court clearly did here. This was just a simple dispute over valuation, so it wasn’t like there was a unpaid tax out there. So the independent school district hired a lawyer on a contingency to go fight with the taxpayer about the proper valuation of the property. And so the taxpayer, of course argued you can’t do that. You can’t hire a lawyer on a contingency to fight with me about an appraisal. It turned out that was correct, but the more interesting part here was that the taxpayer referred to the lawyer that was hired to do this as a tax ferret.

Rocky Dhir:

I see, okay.

Roland Love:

And then he turned around and he referred to the taxpayer as a tax cheat and the progeny of Enron.

Rocky Dhir:

Okay, so these is a party saying this to each other,

Roland Love:

And they’re doing this in front of the court. So I love it. I really just love that they were going back and forth and back and forth. And it did go after the school district saying that this was a tax fert contract. So the court just really enjoyed, I think that, and then said that that didn’t affect us. And of course, I ended up with that. The court said this colorful terminology does not aid our review of the legal question, which turned primarily on the relevant provisions of the tax code. None of which use mammalian metaphors. I should have put that in there. It’s probably a better quote. And then we assume the parties mean no disrespect to the furry animal mammal itself. A beloved pet of Queen Elizabeth one celebrated annually on National Ferret Day. April two. Did you know that in the United Kingdom they have a holiday to celebrate the ferret as a pet?

Rocky Dhir:

I didn’t know that, but that doesn’t surprise me about the United Kingdom. So

Roland Love:

It made me laugh to read it. I hope others may find it humorous also. So it’s great to see the court say, Hey, we don’t look at that. You guys can call each other names all you want, but this one was pretty funny, so they took it a little bit further.

Rocky Dhir:

That’s a great case to kind of wrap things up with because it does put things in perspective and gives us a little bit of humor. So thank you for sharing that, and thank you for the additional insights. This is why, folks, you got to tune in to the podcast because there’s stuff in here that you don’t always get in your bar Journal. So Roland, thank you for proving us correct, but we are unfortunately out of time. But it’s been a real pleasure, Roland, to have you here with us today. Thank you for sharing your insights.

Roland Love:

Well, thank you for having me. Happy holidays to everyone.

Rocky Dhir:

Absolutely. Happy holidays. And of course, I want to thank you for tuning in, encourage you to stay safe and be well. And if you like what you heard today, please rate and review us, an Apple podcast, Google Podcasts, or your favorite podcast app. Until next time, remember, life’s a journey, folks. I’m Rocky Dhir. Wishing you Happy holidays and a happy new year. Signing off for now.

Speaker 1:

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