Background
Huntington Ridge Farm, Inc., a professional horse training company in Holly, Michigan, sold its property to Devoted Friends Animal Society, Inc.—a nonprofit that rehabilitates abused and neglected animals—in May 2019 for $1,180,000 on a land contract. Devoted Friends paid $300,000 down and agreed to pay the $880,000 balance with interest in monthly installments. After Devoted Friends fell behind on payments, Huntington Ridge Farm commenced land contract forfeiture proceedings in district court. The district court entered a judgment of possession on February 8, 2024, though it did not use the required State Court Administrative Office (SCAO) form.
Devoted Friends filed a circuit court appeal and, separately, recorded a notice of lis pendens. Huntington Ridge Farm moved to discharge the lis pendens, arguing that after the 90-day statutory redemption period expired in October 2022, Devoted Friends had no remaining property interest to support a lis pendens. The circuit court discharged the lis pendens on May 31, 2023. Two days later—after discharge—Huntington Ridge Farm sold the property to a third party (Portman) for $850,000. When Devoted Friends later admitted in circuit court that reclaiming the property was “impossible,” the circuit court nonetheless issued orders attempting to unwind the subsequent sale. Huntington Ridge Farm appealed those orders.
The Court’s Holding
The Court of Appeals vacated the circuit court’s orders that sought to unwind the sale to Portman, affirmed in part, and dismissed the remainder as moot. Once Devoted Friends admitted it was “impossible” to reclaim the property and the circuit court acknowledged the property had been sold, no court could fashion equitable relief relating to possession. Even if the district court’s judgment of possession used the wrong SCAO form, entering a retroactively corrected form at that point would have no legal effect.
The court also addressed the lis pendens issue. Under Michigan law, a lis pendens gives notice of pending litigation but does not annul existing property rights—it merely subordinates later-acquired interests to the outcome of the litigation. A lis pendens has no effect on property rights that already exist at the time it is filed. Because the circuit court had discharged the lis pendens before the sale to Portman closed, and because Devoted Friends offered no evidence that it retained a property interest superior to Huntington Ridge Farm’s after the forfeiture and redemption period, Portman was a bona fide purchaser who took the property free of Devoted Friends’ claims. The court dismissed the remaining issues as moot because the property had been sold and no injunctive or possessory remedy was available.
Key Takeaways
- A notice of lis pendens does not create or preserve a substantive property interest—it merely gives constructive notice of litigation. Once a lis pendens is discharged by court order, a purchaser who closes after discharge takes the property as a bona fide purchaser, free of the claimant’s interests, provided no actual notice of a superior claim exists.
- In Michigan land contract forfeiture proceedings, once the statutory redemption period expires and the vendor has regained possession, the vendee’s property interest is extinguished. A subsequent sale to a third party moots any circuit court equitable relief that would require unwinding the transaction.
- The use of an incorrect SCAO judgment-of-possession form is a procedural defect that does not retroactively void a land contract forfeiture judgment. Ordering entry of the correct form years after the property has been sold to a third party is an empty remedy that courts will decline to order.
- When a party’s own admission makes it impossible to provide the requested equitable relief, the case becomes moot. Courts retain no jurisdiction to order remedies that cannot, as a practical matter, be implemented.
Why It Matters
Huntington Ridge Farm v. Devoted Friends Animal Society is a useful reminder of the practical limits of lis pendens practice in Michigan real property litigation. Real estate counsel should note that a lis pendens discharge clears the path for a vendor to sell to a third party free of the claimant’s interests—and that closing promptly after discharge, while also ensuring the title is marketable, is the correct sequence. Vendees in land contract forfeiture proceedings should move quickly to challenge the forfeiture and, if necessary, seek an injunction before the vendor can complete a third-party sale.
The decision also underscores a litigation reality in contested land contract cases: once a party concedes the property is gone and reclamation is impossible, the case effectively collapses to a money judgment. Circuit court orders attempting to unwind completed sales will be vacated as moot. Parties seeking to protect their interests in a land contract dispute should exhaust injunctive remedies before the property changes hands.