Nikooie v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.

183 So. 3d 424, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 20020, 2014 WL 6911148
District Court of Appeal of Florida·Decided December 10, 2014·No. 3D10-3090·Published·Cited by 6 cases

Opinions

SALTER, J.

In this appeal and cross-appeal, we review a final judgment addressing competing claims among a group of real estate lenders. Despite the relative simplicity of Florida’s recording laws and the well-settled procedures for mortgage loan closings, the underlying development project became a tangled knot of claims and counterclaims.1 Embarrassingly for the legal profession, most of the tangled web is attributable to the acts and omissions of lawyers — -though not those representing the parties here or in the trial court.2

We affirm the trial court’s rulings in all respects but two. We reverse the trial court’s determination that the lien of the appellant and cross-appellee, Akbar Ni-kooie, is a second-priority lien for $1,349,000 plus interest; and we remand so that it may be allowed as a first-priority lien for the principal amount of $116,000 plus interest and as a third-priority lien for principal of $1,044,000 plus interest. We also reverse the trial court’s determination that JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., as successor to Washington Mutual Bank, should be allowed a fourth-position equitable or [426] mortgage lien for approximately $600,000 of a new loan purportedly made to a non-party in 2006. On remand, the trial court should afford Nikooie and JPMorgan an opportunity to demonstrate that they have paid documentary stamp and intangible taxes as required by Florida law if those parties seek enforcement of the additional principal amounts claimed by them below.

Nikooie, Zabaleta, Jacobazzi,' and the Property

The appellant and cross-appellee is Akbar Nikooie, an investor. The prime piece of Miami Beach real estate at the center of the case, located at 4424 North Bay Road (the Property), was bought by Jason Za-baleta in January 2005. Zabaleta obtained a purchase money first mortgage for $3,150,000 from the non-party seller, North Bay Realty, LLC. Nikooie initially loanéd Zabaleta $800,000 for renovations, evidenced by an unrecorded note and mortgage for $860,000 ($60,000 was included as the anticipated interest to accrue during the term of the loan). The mortgage was not recorded, Nikooie testified, in order to save recording expenses.3

During October 2005, Zabaleta and Daniel Jacobazzi transferred title to the Property in transactions more" akin to rugby than bona fide property sales. First, Za-baleta sold the Property to Jacobazzi, ostensibly for $5,600,000, and Jacobazzi obtained a purchase money mortgage on the Property from Washington Mutual Bank4 for $3,902,500. Washington Mutual’s mortgage was recorded arid the requisite documentary stamp and intangible taxes were paid. The proceeds of that loan were used in part to satisfy North Bay Realty’s purchase money mortgage ($3,165,534.20). That satisfaction was recorded in Ñovem-ber 2005, so that Washington Mutual’s mortgage was then the first-priority (and only) mortgage on the Property.-

Zabaleta’s deed to Jacobazzi was dated October 18, 2005, and it was recorded shortly aftér the Washington Mutual loan closing. On October 20, 2005, however, Jacobazzi reconveyed the Property to Za-baleta; that deed was not .recorded until February 2006, In January 2006, Zabale-ta borrowed a further $300,000 from Ni-kooie,. in anticipation that Zabaleta would conclude the renovations and sell the Property at a profit. Zabaleta executed a mortgage and security agreement to secure the then-total amount owed by him to Nikooie, $1,160,000, acknowledging that it was second in priority to the purchase money first mortgage (the Washington Mutual mortgage). The Zabaleta-Nikooie mortgage for $1,160,000 was not recorded.

The Altered Mortgage

In February 2006, someone altered the Zabaleta-Nikooie mortgage and note to reduce the stated $1,160,000 in secured indebtedness to $116,000. As so altered, the mortgage was recorded and documentary stamp tax ($406) and intangible tax ($232) on $116,000 were paid to the recorder’s office and duly printed on the first page of the recorded twenty-three-page mortgage and secured- promissory note. Page one of the mortgage and the promissory note (recorded as page twenty-three of the instrument) both reported the secured indebtedness as $116,000. Section 1.08 of the mortgage, page eight, provided:

■Equity Participation, The Mortgagee [Nikooie] originally lent the Mortgagor [Zabaleta] the principal sum of Eight Hundred Sixty Thousand and 00/100 [427] Dollars ($860,000.00), which sum would have become due and payable as of February 1, 2006. The Mortgagor has lent the Mortgagee the additional principal sum of Three Hundred Thousand and 00/100 Dollars ($300,000.00), In lieu of interest, Mortgagee has agreed to accept a participatory interest in the profit from the sale of the Mortgaged Property, as more fully set forth in the Note.

Section 3.17 of the mortgage, page twenty, provided:

Future Advances. This Mortgage is granted to secure future advances from the Mortgagee to the Mortgagor made, at the option of the Mortgagee, within twenty (20) years of the date-hereof. The unpaid principal balance of the indebtedness hereby secured, exclusive of disbursements made by the Mortgagee for taxes, levies, assessments and insurance and exclusive of accrued interest, shall never at one time exceed the sum of One Hundred Fifty Thousand and 00/100 Dollars ($150,000.00).

Nikooie has. asserted , below and here that these provisions, coupled with a “mortgage modification agreement” signed by Zabaleta and recorded in June 2007, confirm the first-priority lien status of his $1,160,000 loan (plus a later advance) relating back to the date of the altered mortgage (February 2006).

The Second Washington Mutual Loan . .

In June 2006 (when the 2005 Washington Mutual purchase money mortgage loan was in first-recorded position, and Ñi-kooie’s altered mortgage for $116,000 was in second-recorded position), Zabaleta sold the Property to Jose Mejia, a Venezuelan senator and military officer. Mejia’s purchase was to be funded by a $4,500,000 purchase money mortgage from Washington Mutual. The proceeds of that loan were to be used to pay off the'2005 Zabale-ta-Washington Mutual mortgage on the Property.

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Nikooie v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A., 183 So. 3d 424, 2014 Fla. App. LEXIS 20020, 2014 WL 6911148 (Fla. Ct. App. 2014).

183 So. 3d 424 (Nikooie v. JPMorgan Chase Bank, N.A.) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

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