{"id":957,"date":"2016-05-12T09:23:49","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T16:23:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fiduciarydutiesblog.com\/?p=957"},"modified":"2016-05-12T09:23:49","modified_gmt":"2016-05-12T16:23:49","slug":"jones-v-wachovia-bank-limitation-on-property-owners-ability-to-testify-regarding-value","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/?p=957","title":{"rendered":"Jones v. Wachovia Bank \u2013 Limitation on Property Owner\u2019s Ability to Testify Regarding Value"},"content":{"rendered":"

The decision in Jones v. Wachovia Bank<\/strong> (2014) 230 Cal.App.4th 935 reminds us that all opinion testimony must be supported by reasonable foundation.\u00a0 The underlying complaint was based on an allegation \u201cthe bank breached an agreement to postpone the trustee sale and, by reason of that breach, plaintiffs lost their equity in the property.\u201d<\/p>\n

The court \u201cexplained that a gratuitous oral promise to postpone a sale of property pursuant to the terms of a trust deed ordinarily would be unenforceable under [Civil Code] section 1698.\u00a0 This is because the oral promise had not been executed by the parties, as required by section 1698.\u201d<\/p>\n

The homeowners did not prevail because they \u201cproduced no evidence showing that they refrained from bringing their loan current in reliance on the June 18 sale date because they had no ability to do so \u2026 Plaintiffs did nothing to substantially change their position before their home was sold, and they intended to do nothing other than to seek another postponement.\u201d<\/p>\n

More significantly, \u201cWachovia is entitled to summary judgment for the additional reason that plaintiffs failed to present sufficient evidence of injury.\u201d\u00a0 The court\u2019s analysis is as follows.<\/p>\n

\"Fresno<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201c[Plaintiff] claimed that the $555,000 sale price was substantially below the current market value of the home due to demolition conducted by the seller.\u00a0 The trial court sustained Wachovia’s objection to that opinion testimony for lack of foundation \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cAn owner’s right to testify regarding the value of real property under [Evidence Code] section 813 is not absolute \u2026 A property owner is bound by the same rules of admissibility as any other witness regarding the value of real property.\u00a0 (Evid. Code, \u00a7 814 [requiring a foundation for real property value opinion based on information \u2018of a type that reasonably may be relied upon by an expert in forming an opinion as to the value of property.\u2019]\u201d<\/p>\n

Lacking proper foundation \u2013 in other words, a factual basis for his opinion of value \u2013 the owner was barred from stating his opinion regarding the value of his property.\u00a0 \u201cA foundation must be laid indicating the other property sold was sufficiently similar to the property in litigation to indicate the price realized for the other land may fairly be considered as shedding light on the value of the land in question.\u00a0 It must also appear that the other sale was genuine and sufficiently voluntary to be a reasonable index of value and that the price was actually paid or substantially secured.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones v. Wachovia Bank<\/strong> (2014) 230 Cal.App.4th 935<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The decision in Jones v. Wachovia Bank (2014) 230 Cal.App.4th 935 reminds us that all opinion testimony must be supported by reasonable foundation.\u00a0 The underlying complaint was based on an allegation \u201cthe bank breached an agreement to postpone the trustee sale and, by reason of that breach, plaintiffs lost their equity in the property.\u201d The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-case-law","category-real-property"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=957"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/957\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=957"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=957"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=957"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}