Sargent, Sargent & Jacobs, LLC v. Thoele

Citations

• 214 Conn. App. 179

Syllabus

The plaintiff escrow agent sought, by way of an action for interpleader, a determination of the rights to certain funds that the defendant purchaser had placed in escrow with the plaintiff as a deposit pursuant to a the purchase and sale agreement made in 2018 for certain real property owned by the defendant seller. Prior to closing, the purchaser learned that the seller had entered into an agreement (neighbor agreement) several years prior with the owners of neighboring properties, which included a provision for an easement on the seller's property in order to connect the neighbors' properties to the town's sanitary sewer system via a sewer line to be installed across the seller's property. The purchase and sale agreement did not reference the neighbor agreement or the potential sewer easement and further represented in § 16 (m) that the seller was not aware of any claims for rights of passage, easement, or other property rights to the property. Because of the neighbor agreement, the purchaser's title insurance company refused to issue a title policy. As a result thereof, the purchaser invoked § 9 (b) of the purchase and sale agreement relating to encumbrances of title and the seller's obligation to cure such claimed encumbrance or other defect in marketable title, specifically the sewer easement, and thereafter terminated the contract when the seller failed to cure such claimed encumbrance prior to closing. Subsequently, the plaintiff initiated an interpleader action to determine the defendants' rights to the deposit held in escrow by the plaintiff. Thereafter, each of the defendants filed cross claims against the other, claiming, inter alia, breach of contract and return of deposit. At trial, the seller sought to introduce a letter of intent, signed by the defendants in 2016 during the early negotiations for the sale of the property, which provided that there was an existing sewer easement that ran with the land. The purchaser objected to the introduction of the