Foreclosure Judgment – Parking Easement

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WI Court of Appeals – District III

Case Name: Peoples State Bank v. Debra K. McCarty, et al.,

Case No.: 2020AP1757

Officials: Stark, P.J., Hruz and Seidl, JJ.

Focus: Foreclosure Judgment – Parking Easement

Peoples State Bank (“the Bank”) was granted a foreclosure judgment on a piece of commercial property owned by Debra McCarty. That property benefitted from a parking easement on adjacent residential property owned by Julie Pilecky. The sole issue on appeal is whether the foreclosure judgment—which did not reference either the parking easement specifically or easements in general—foreclosed McCarty’s interest in the parking easement, such that the parking easement continued to benefit the subject property after the Bank purchased that property at a sheriff’s sale.

Pilecky argues that under the plain language of WIS. STAT. § 846.10(1) (2019-20), the lack of any reference to the parking easement in the foreclosure judgment means that the foreclosed property did not include the parking easement. In response, the Bank asserts that although § 846.10(1) requires a foreclosure judgment to include a legal description of the foreclosed property, it does not require a foreclosure judgment to describe or otherwise reference any easements appurtenant to that property. The Bank further argues that other Wisconsin statutes and case law provide that appurtenant easements run with the dominant estate and need not be specifically described in a conveyance in order to be included with the property conveyed or transferred.

We agree with the Bank that the foreclosed property in this case included the parking easement, which was appurtenant to McCarty’s property, even though the foreclosure judgment did not mention either the parking easement specifically or easements in general. We therefore affirm the circuit court’s decision granting summary judgment in favor of the Bank on its claims for declaratory judgment and slander of title, and on Pilecky’s counterclaim for abuse of process.

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Derek A Hawkins is Associate Corporate Counsel, IP at Amazon.