Real Property – Sale of Property Ordered where Expenses Outweigh Value – Payout of Life Estate Value

Upon finding that the property is unproductive and Defendant could not pay for taxes and reasonable upkeep, it is in the best interest of the parties for the court to order sale of the property.

We affirmed the trial court’s order to sell the property and distribute the proceeds from the sale in accordance with section 41-11.

Plaintiff and Third-Party Defendants appealed from the trial court’s judgment entered in 2024 ordering property to be sold, the value of Defendant’s life estate be paid to him, and the balance be invested for Plaintiff and Third-Party Defendants as the remaindermen. Plaintiff and Third-Party Defendants contended the trial court committed several errors. We disagreed.

In 2019, Plaintiff filed a complaint against Defendant alleging waste of the subject property. Upon the death of the owner of the property, the property was devised to Defendant, her husband, as life tenant, and then to Plaintiff, her son, upon Defendant’s death. Defendant filed a counterclaim against Plaintiff for sale of the property under N.C. Gen. Stat. § 41-11, alleging the income from the property “is insufficient to pay the taxes and upkeep of the real property.” In addition, Defendant filed a third-party complaint of the same section 41-11 claim for sale of the property against two additional Third-Party Defendants. Plaintiff and Third-Party Defendants motioned to dismiss the section 41-11 action.

In 2023, the Clerk of Superior Court found it was “in the best interest of all the parties that the [property] be sold at a private sale and the proceeds be distributed and invested pursuant to [section] 41-11.” Further, the Clerk ruled “after all costs of sale, the value of Defendant’s life estate shall be determined and invested pursuant to [section] 41-11, and the balance distributed equally to the Plaintiff and Third-Party Defendants, being those who own the remainder interest in said real property.”

The superior court adopted the Clerk’s findings of fact in full, but modified the conclusions of law, ordering the property still be sold but “after all costs of sale, the value of Defendant’s life estate shall be determined and paid to life tenant, [Defendant], in fee simple, and the balance shall be invested for the benefit of [] Plaintiff and Third[-]Party Defendants being the remaindermen, as provided in [section] 41-11.

Plaintiff argued the trial court erred in its conclusions of law by finding Defendant entitled to sale of the property and subsequent payout of the value of his life tenancy pursuant to section 41-11 of the North Carolina General Statutes. We held that the findings of fact are sufficient to show the property was unproductive with mounting maintenance and financial constraints bringing the property’s value and income potential down. Likewise, the findings show Defendant could not pay both the taxes and reasonable upkeep on the income he earned, including both the social security income and the monthly rental income. Thus, these findings properly serve as the factual basis for the trial court’s conclusion of law 2(c).

Affirmed.

Zuleger v. Clore (Lawyers’ Weekly No. 011-284-25, 19 pp.) (Jefferson Griffin, J.) Appealed from Haywood County Superior Court (Alan Z. Thornburg, J.) Hyde Brown Wilson PA, by Mark A. Wilson, for Plaintiff and Third-Party Defendants. Smathers & Smathers, by Patrick U. Smathers, for Defendant/Third-Party Plaintiff. North Carolina Court of Appeals