Irelan McDaniel continues with our success before the courts of appeal in Texas. In Cohen v. Sandcastle Homes, the First Court of Appeals upheld the summary judgment IM obtained for our clients at the trial court level. In a matter of first impression, the First Court of Appeals held the expunction of a notice lis pendens under Section 12.0071 of the Property Code prevented the Plaintiff from relying on a verbal notification of the lawsuit to the buyer to defeat bona fide purchaser status.
The court ruled the purpose behind Section 12.0071 was to prevent a party from offensively using the lis pendens doctrine to effectively cloud title until litigation was completed unless that party could prove the probable validity of its real property claims.
