COA affirms foreclosure of Crown Point property

A trial court was correct in granting a bank’s request to foreclose on a Crown Point, Indiana, business park, the Court of Appeals held Thursday.

East Point Business Park LLLC, Fieldview Properties LLC and Karen Rusin, sole owner of Fieldview, challenged the Lake Superior Court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of Private Real Estate Holdings LLC’s foreclosure action against them in November 2014. East Point Business Park LLC was formed for the purpose of buying and developing a 124-acre parcel of real estate for a business park. Fieldview and Investors of East Point LLC were members of East Point.

East Point obtained loans from Chicago-based Private-Bank, but ended up defaulting on the loans. East Point borrowed $2.2 million and Fieldview borrowed $2.7 million, which were secured by promissory notes and mortgages on the property.

Private-Bank sued East Point and its guarantors in February 2011; while the suit was pending, the bank settled with the guarantors of the East Point loan. East Point, Fieldview and Rusin were the remaining defendants. Private-Bank then sold the loan to PREH which became the plaintiff .  

“We hold that the Defendants filed their designated evidence in an untimely fashion and that such evidence should therefore not be considered. We also hold that the trial court did not err in denying the Defendants’ motion to strike the affidavit of (PREH principal) Arshad Malik, which was submitted by PREH in support of its motion for summary judgment,” Judge Paul Mathias wrote in the 33-page opinion in East Point Business Park, LLC, Fieldview Properties, LLC, and Karen Rusin v. Private Real Estate Holdings, LLC, 45A05-1412-MF-584.

“The Defendants’ argument that (Private-Bank) made an oral agreement to a fourth loan renewal is barred by the relevant Illinois statute of frauds, which, as a substantive law, is applicable to the interpretation of the loan agreements. We also conclude that (Private-Bank) did not breach the loan agreements by reneging on the alleged oral agreement or by failing to fund the last draw request by the Defendants. Lastly, the foreclosure action is not prevented by the (Private-Bank) or PREH’s allegedly unclean hands.”