Shall Ye Know Them

Judge Mark V. (“Vittorio Emanuele”) Holmes isn’t so sure about that when it comes to Ogeechee Plantation Property, LLC, Ogeechee Plantation Manager, LLC, Tax Matters Partner, et al., Docket No. 6585-21, filed 3/5/25.

This Dixieland Boondockery features two (count ’em, two) deeds. Ogechee and an outfit called Belford Oaks each contributed a conservation easement, and a couple other outfits did likewise (remember this is Judge Holmes). They want summary J that these were “qualified real property interests” per Section 170(h)(1)(A) and donated in perpetuity per Section 170(h)(2)(C).

The deed donating the interest describes the parcel in question as lots on a tax map, but same are carve-outs from a much larger parcel, the description of which, printed in full, runs a page-and-a-half. The problem doesn’t end there, as three (count ’em, three) years later, two other outfits, Belford Pines and Fort Argyle filed a “corrective limited warranty deed” that omits any reference to the larger parcel. Order, at p. 4.

Judge Holmes is concerned the petitioners may have been getting shifty.

“These cases are presumptively appealable to the Eleventh Circuit. In Pine Mountain Preserve, LLC v. Comm’r, 978 F.3d 1200, 1207 (11th Cir. 2020), that court interpreted section 170(h)(2)(C) to require donation of an easement over a defined property. It specifically held that a restriction on ‘the real property’ is not perpetual when the boundaries of the property might shift, though it ruled that the deed at issue did not allow for shifting boundaries.” Order, at p. 4.

But the initial deed and the corrective limited warranty deed vary so widely that Judge Holmes can’t tell what was originally granted, and what error, if any, was sought to be corrected.

“Ogeechee and Belford Oaks may not have adequately described the property over which they were granting their easements. And the subsequent changes in the ‘corrective deeds’ that Belford Pines and Fort Argyle filed may be an attempt to change the boundaries of the property to which the easement applies, or an implicit admission that the [original] deeds … did not adequately describe that property, or maybe something else.” Order, at p. 4.

Tough to solve after a trial, but here it’s easy to bounce summary J because movant hasn’t shown entitlement to judgment as a matter of law.

But Judge Holmes won’t continue trial, now set for Jacksonville FL in June, because hard to find courtroom space with all these Dixieland Boondockery trials going on.