2011 Update – North Carolina Eminent Domain Cases

by Christopher Simmons on March 15, 2012

First Annual North Carolina Eminent Domain Case Update

CarolinaCondemnationLaw.com has just published its first annual update of North Carolina condemnation cases. This 2011 condemnation cases update includes all North Carolina eminent domain cases in both State and Federal appellate courts (i.e., cases from North Carolina in the North Carolina Court of Appeals and North Carolina Supreme Court as well as the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the United States Supreme Court).

(This update also includes one condemnation case reported from the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina.)

For each case, there is a very brief summary that includes key holdings. These cases, of course, frequently contain other important points, so you may want to read the entire text of each case. To make that easier, each summary includes links to the case at the website of the relevant appellate court. Plus, for those of you with Westlaw or Lexis accounts, there are also links to each case on those services. Finally, many of these cases already have individual posts of their own here on CarolinaCondemnationLaw.com. So, for those cases, you will also find links below to their respective posts on the Cases page.

To read the 2011 Update – North Carolina Condemnation Cases, you should click here.

Re-Elect Laura Riddick Wake County Register of Deeds

by Christopher Simmons on February 13, 2012

Re-Elect Laura Riddick Wake County Register of Deeds

Re-Elect Laura Riddick Wake County Register of Deeds

Laura Riddick has filed for Re-Election as Wake County Register of Deeds

Today, Wake County Register of Deeds Laura Riddick filed her re-election papers at Wake County’s Board of Elections shortly after noon.  As of of the Raleigh real estate attorneys, I am proud to support her bid for fifth term of continuing to improve the Wake Country Registry.  It really is a first-rate Office with outstanding service, both in person, and on-line, for free from anywhere in the world.

Laura Riddick – Tremendous Work as Wake County Register of Deeds

Folks who have seen my earlier post about Laura’s tremedous work at the Wake County Registry know that I think very highly of her and the huge amount of work she has done.  As many people know, North Carolina has 100 counties, and the Register of Deeds in responsible for keeping up with, indexing, and making public records available for

  • deeds, deeds of trust (mortgages), and other real estate instruments;
  • UCC filings (required to perfect security interest in certain personal property);
  • marriage licenses; and
  • birth and death certificates.

Looking forward and making even more improvements to the Wake County Registry

Laura told me she is looking forward in her next term to executing a smooth relocation of the Registry from temporary space in the One Hannover Square office building in downtown Raleigh to Wake County’s new Justice Center under construction several blocks away, which will be an enormous undertaking.

Laura also noted that the next term will bring the mandatory implementation of major new statewide property-records indexing standards. In a county as large and fast-growing as Wake, that will involve hundreds of thousands of records.

“The next term will be daunting, but I look forward to the challenge. I hope the voters of Wake County find our office’s online tools helpful and are pleased with the customer service we provide with marriage licenses and vital records. If I am re-elected, we will continue to advance technologically while providing professional, courteous, responsive, efficient, and cost-effective service for our customers and all of Wake County’s taxpayers.”

No Finer Register of Deeds than Lara Riddick

As many folks know, there are 100 counties in North Carolina, each with its own elected Register of Deeds.  But I do not know of one in which the land records, UCC filings, and business assumed name records, and vital records are kept in better order or made more easily accessible.  So, I hope you will join me and Vote Laura Riddick for Wake County Register of Deeds.

My Friend & Real-Life Job Creator Uli Wiegand

by Christopher Simmons on January 16, 2012

Uli Wiegand, Oli Wiegand, Interordnance, I.O., Inc., Hellcat .380 ACP

Ulrich H. Wiegand, President of I.O., Inc. (fka Interordnance)

Ulrich H. Wiegand & I.O., Inc. (fka Interordnance) Creating Jobs in North Carolina

You hear the phrase, “job creator” a lot right now, but you don’t many specific individuals named as actual job creators. So, I thought I should mention my friend, Ulrich H. Wiegand.

Uli Wiegand is a firearms manufacturer and importer who actually employs over 25 people, including two recent U.S. Army veterans, in Monroe, North Carolina, just outside of Charlotte.  Uli has been in business for almost 15 years.  He originally started his import business Interordnance with his brother Oliver M. Wiegand.  Later, Uli bought out Oli, changed the company name to I.O., Inc.,  and started manufacturing firearms, including his new and improved Hellcat .380 automatic compact pistol.  Uli’s Hellcat .380 is not only made in the USA, so are all of its parts.  Even the machines I.O., Inc. uses to manufacture its in-house parts are made in America.  I.O, only sells its handgun through Hellcat .380 distributors, who, in turn, sell to Hellcat .380 retailers.  The end customers are U.S. civilians and law enforcement officers.  (BTW: another big customer of I.O. generally is the U.S. Department of Defense.)

In a difficult economy, when good jobs are scarce, Uli has built a local business and actually created good, American manufacturing jobs here at home, and I am very proud of him.

Business and Real Estate Trial Lawyers Write Persuasively for a Living

by Christopher Simmons on December 9, 2011

Talking is Not Enough

Good trial attorneys need good oral skills. They have to make persuasive presentations to the Judge and the Jury. But being able to stand up and talk in front of an important audience is not enough. To carry the day, litigators, especially business and real estate trial attorneys, need good writing skills.

Word processing tools like “Paste Special” can help

Nowadays, persuasive writing includes using word processing tools to efficiently generate high quality documents that a Judge can easily read. One tool I use is the “Paste Special” feature in Microsoft Word. It lets you copy text in one font or format and paste it into your document so that it matches your font and format. But using “Paste Special” can be tedious. With a mouse, it takes several clicks, and remembering to use the string of “shortcut” key combinations can be annoying.

Paste Special made Easy

Recently, I discovered a much easier way to use “Paste Special”. It’s a short macro. You could record the macro yourself, but because of a Microsoft glitch, you would still have to edit the code. No trial lawyer has time for that. So, I had a computer guy program the whole macro code and then just copied it into my collection of macros in Word. Now, all I have to do to “Paste Special” and keep my documents looking sharp, is to press Alt-V. Since Ctrl-V is the default shortcut for a regular paste, using Alt-V for “Paste Special” is easy to remember and use.

Would you like the Macro?

If you would like a copy of the Paste-Special macro and the very short instructions on how to quickly install it, just shoot me an email from my Contact page.

Real Estate Law Creates New Private Right of Action

by Christopher Simmons on November 10, 2011

Ben Kuhn Raleigh Commercial Real Estate Attorney

New Private Right of Action for Damages PLUS Attorneys’ Fees for Unauthorized Practice of Law

Recently, Raleigh Real Estate Attorney Ben Kuhn gave a presentation about a new North Carolina law affecting real estate transactions. Ben spoke about North Carolina Session Law 2011-336 (Senate Bill 349), which has been passed by the General Assembly and signed by the Governor.  It creates a new private right of action for people harmed by the unauthorized practice of law and entitles them to recover both damages and reasonable attorneys’ fees.

To accomplish this, the Session Law enacts a new General Statute, N.C. Gen. Stat. §84-10.1. The new statute is an addition to Article 1 of Chapter 84, which governs the unauthorized practice of law.  Previously, Chapter 84, Article 1 had only permitted a District Attorney to file a civil lawsuit to seek an injunction prohibiting someone (or some corporation) from the unauthorized practice of law. (It also required, and still requires, a DA to indict such a person for the Class 1 Misdemeanor of unauthorized practice of law.) But when N.C. Gen. Stat. §84-10.1 goes into effect on January 1, 2012, private individuals will also be able to file a separate civil lawsuit against others they claim have engaged in the unauthorized practice of law. Moreover, unlike the District Attorney, private individuals will be able to recover their money damages as well as reasonable attorneys’ fees.

Text of the New Statute, N.C. Gen. Stat. §84-10.1

Here is the text of the new statute, which becomes effective January 1, 2012:

N.C. Gen. Stat. §84-10.1. Private cause of action for the unauthorized practice of law.

“If any person knowingly violates any of the provisions of G.S. 84-4 through G.S. 84-6 or G.S. 84-9, fraudulently holds himself or herself out as a North Carolina certified paralegal by use of the designations set forth in G.S. 84-37(a), or knowingly aids and abets another person to commit the unauthorized practice of law, in addition to any other liability imposed pursuant to this Chapter or any other applicable law, any person who is damaged by the unlawful acts set out in this section shall be entitled to maintain a private cause of action to recover damages and reasonable attorneys’ fees.”

New Statute Also Expands North Carolina Law on Recovering Attorneys’ Fees

N.C. Gen. Stat. §84-10.1 adds to the short list of North Carolina statutes authorizing the award of attorneys’ fees. That is significant because in North Carolina you cannot recover attorneys’ fees unless a specific statute authorizes a judge to award them to you, and there are very few such statutes. This is the rule on attorneys’ fees in NC even for most business contracts, even when the parties to the contract have agreed to an attorneys’ fees provision.  To read about a new exception to this rule, you should see this post: New Statute Makes Attorneys’ Fees Provisions in Business Contracts Enforceable.

Raleigh Real Estate Lawyer Ben Kuhn

Ben Kuhn is Raleigh real estate attorney who practices commercial real estate, including

  • Retail, Office, Industrial and Commercial Leasing
  • Land and Development Acquisition and Financing
  • Zoning and Land Use Compliance
  • Development Entitlements and Permitting
Ben is also a founding member of the Real Estate Lawyers Association of North Carolina, a group focused on consumer protection in residential real estate transactions.  The association’s June 2011 update contains a detailed review of the of the new law.  To read that and other updates by the association, you should click here.

Injured in Portland? You need a Portland Personal Injury Attorney.

by Christopher Simmons on October 25, 2011

Outstanding Personal Injury Website for Portland, OR

Portland Personal Injury Lawyer E.J. Simmons

Portland Personal Injury Attorney E. J. Simmons

Portland Personal Injury Attorney E.J. Simmons, has a new, very helpful website for folks who have been injured by another’s negligence in or around Portland, Oregon.  The site covers topic including

If you have sustained  a personal injury in Portland, you will find lots of helpful information about personal injury on the site that explain what you will need to know to protect your claim and your family.

Portland Personal Injury Attorney E.J. Simmons

To check out the website and to see if E.J. can be of help to you, you should click here.

Disclaimer:

E.J. Simmons is, of course, my Dad and has been practicing law in Portland for 35 years.  One of his main practice areas has been helping people who have been hurt by other people’s negligence get the compensation they deserve and their families need.

New Statute Prohibits Naming Trustees as Parties in Civil Cases

by Christopher Simmons on September 6, 2011

New Statute Prohibits Naming Trustees as Parties in Civil Actions, including Condemnation Cases

New Statute Prohibits Naming Trustees as Parties in Civil Actions, including Condemnation Cases

North Carolina has just ratified a bill, signed by the Governor, that is partially entitled,

“AN ACT TO MODERNIZE AND ENACT CERTAIN PROVISIONS REGARDING DEEDS OF TRUST….”

S.B. 679, 2011 Sess. Law 312 (the “Act”).

The Act, which is effective October 1, 2011, modifies North Carolina General Statutes in Chapters 24 (Interest), 45 (Mortgages and Deeds of Trust), and 161 (Register of Deeds). It also creates a new statute, N.C. Gen. Stat. § 45-45.3, which is entitled, “Trustee in a deed of trust” and is set out below.  That statute effectively prohibits anyone from naming a trustee under a deed of trust as a defendant in any civil action other than a foreclosure or an exercise of a power of sale.  If a trustee is improperly named as a party, the statute permits the named trustee to seek and receive an involuntary dismissal and costs and attorneys’ fees.

N.C. Gen. Stat. § 45-45.3 Applies to All Civil Actions including Condemnation

Because this statute affects civil actions, including eminent domain in North Carolina, we have recently posted about it at CarolinaCondemnationLaw.com.

To read more about this new statute, and find out how to deal with it, you should click here.

Two New North Carolina Condemnation Cases

by Christopher Simmons on August 16, 2011

CarolinaCondemnationlaw.com is an online journal of North Carolina eminent domain law for eminent domain lawyers and other professionals as well as for lay people who are interested in North Carolina land condemnation law. Recently, the North Carolina Court of Appeals handed down decisions in two new eminent domain cases.  You can read summaries of those cases by clicking on the links or photos below.

L & S Water Power, Inc. v. Piedmont Triad Regional Water Authority, ___ N.C. App. ___, 2011 WL 1467366 (Apr. 19, 2011)

Lost Revenue Damages from Inverse Condemnation of Riparian Rights

This is the latest condemnation case involving the Randleman Dam and Lake, a reservoir project straddling Guildford and Randolph Counties and constructed on the Deep River by the Piedmont Triad Regional Water Authority (the “Water Authority”).  In this case, several hydroelectric power producers downstream of the dam filed an inverse condemnation action, alleging that the Authority had reduced the water flow of the Deep River past their facilities and had thereby taken the power producers’ riparian rights without filing a standard condemnation case or depositing any estimate of just compensation.

Town of Apex v. Whitehurst, ___ N.C. App. ___, No. COA10-697 (Jul. 19, 2011)

Inverse Condemnation from Damage to Remainder?

This is a Chapter 136 sewer easement case, in which the defendant property owners (the “Property Owners”) argued that taking a sewer easement through their forested property served a private purpose, not a public purpose, and that it resulted in a total take of their property and inverse condemnation from damage to the remainder.  The North Carolina Court of Appeals dismissed their appeal as untimely, but stepped through the procedural history anyway, and even hinted at an alternate method of dealing with similar counterclaims of inverse condemnation.

Wake County Register of Deeds has Great New Website

by Christopher Simmons on July 30, 2011

Laura Riddick helping Wake County real estate attorneys again

Wake County Register of Deeds Laura Riddick helping Wake County residents and real estate attorneys once again.

Recently, the Wake County Register of Deeds, Laura Riddick, unveiled her new website.  It looks great and even  has a post right up front explaining the changes and improvements to the site:

The Wake County’s Register of Deeds Office is launching a web site overhaul this week that improves the heavily-used public service’s functionality and design. The upgraded site is built on the latest web technology, enabling superior speed, capacity, graphics, and visual appeal. Also enhanced is the site’s logical organization, now providing multiple places and ways to find information, and improved data access, document updates, and management of millions of online images. The changes will make it easier for users to access information on their own, and reduce ROD phone support demands. A new search feature makes it easier for online customers to find what they’re looking for.

Document printing will now be in true what-you-see-is-what-you-get format, and customers can adjust the font size on their screens for maximum readability. A built-in pdf converter is now available as well as a new e-mail forwarding option which will allow customers to instantly share site information with friends, relatives, business partners, and colleagues.

The new site automatically detects when customers are connecting via mobile devices such as Blackberries and iPhones, and adjusts the page format accordingly for proper display. The new website can accommodate additional features in the future such as RSS feeds, streaming video, social media, online payments, and even built-in applications such as weather updates. Please feel free to send comments to rodwebmaster@wakegov.com.

Great new Search Screen & On-Line Records back to 1785!

One feature that I really like and routinely use is the new Real Estate Online Records Search.  The user-interface is cleaner and easier to use than before.  Also, you can now immediately get a PDF of an entire recorded document just by clicking on the PDF icon in the search results.  Finally, and most importantly, Laura has shown outstanding leadership in getting old records on line, so it is not necessary to go to the vault to search title or look up an ancient deed.  In many other of North Carolina’s 100 counties, this is simply not the case.  Here, in Wake County, as the new website states,

Recorded legal documents back to 1785 are available in BOOKS [, the on line search].

The site does caution you that it is built to run only with Internet Explorer.  I prefer Chrome and have found that with a couple of easy changes to Chrome’s settings, everything works just fine.

Wake County Register of Deeds Laura Riddick has done an Outstanding Job

The Wake County Register of Deeds website has always been a great resource for Wake County lawyers. The real estate documents help Wake County real estate litigators, for example Raleigh real estate dispute lawyers who have to retrieve and analyze recorded deeds and other instruments to represent their clients in partition actions, adverse possession disputes, or boundary disputes.

So, thanks very much (again), Laura, for helping Wake County residents and the real estate bar.

BTW: If you are interested in the specific settings I used to get Chrome to work with the Wake County Register of Deeds Website, just leave me a comment or shoot me an email.

Service of Process by FedEx or UPS

by Christopher Simmons on June 8, 2011

NC now allows Service of Process by Designated Delivery Services under 26 U.S.C. § 7502(f)(2)

Service of process can be by certain FedEx services

Service of process is the delivering of a summons and complaint to a defendant.  It is a step that is required to compel, or “hale”, a defendant into court.  After a defendant is properly served, if he or she (or it) fails to appear or file and serve an answer, the plaintiff can win by default.  But if service of process is not done properly, the Court has no personal jurisdiction over the defendant, and any default judgment against the defendant is void.

Usually, a plaintiff has the Sheriff serve the defendant with process.  Sometimes, a plaintiff might serve the defendant through certified mail, return receipt requested.  But since 2001, the North Carolina Rules of Civil Procedure have also allowed service of process to be done

[b]y depositing with a designated delivery service authorized pursuant to 26 U.S.C. § 7502(f)(2) a copy of the summons and complaint, addressed to the party to be served, delivering to the addressee, and obtaining a delivery receipt.

There are, however, a few ins and outs to using this method, starting with making sure you only use a delivery service that is actually designated pursuant to the federal statute.  To read more about service by designated delivery service, you should check out the recent posts by my wife, Inez de Ondarza Simmons, who is another North Carolina real estate litigation attorney:

Serving a lawsuit with UPS or FedEx (but not FedEx Ground!)

P.S. You might also want to see Inez’s post on yesterday’s North Carolina Court of Appeals case on the presumption of proper service by FedEx, where the process package was addressed to the corporate defendant’s registered agent, but  FedEx delivered it to the defendant’s receptionist.

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