The following article is from http://IndiaNewEngland.com [1].

A beleaguered Hindu temple evicted in January from its facilities for failing to make its mortgage payments recently won a key legal victory that clears the way for the temple to argue the eviction was improper.

The Saraswati Mandiram Hindu temple was evicted from its 100-acre pastoral compound in Epping on January 4, after the temple’s Virginia-based lender Gourley & Gourley initiated foreclosure proceedings alleging that the temple failed to make payments on a $1.2 million loan. The temple argued unsuccessfully in its trial court eviction hearings that the foreclosure was illegal and that the lender had acted improperly.

But in a July 8 hearing, the New Hampshire Supreme Court ruled that Gourley & Gourley had failed to properly market the property’s sale and sold it at an arbitrarily low price. The ruling will send the case back to the trial court.

The Supreme Court decision centers on the temple’s foreclosure auction in November 2006. The high bid was $2,000,050, but the bidders defaulted under their purchase and sales agreement. At that time, Gourley & Gourley created G&G Epping LLC and conveyed the property to the newly formed subsidiary for $2 million.

However, officials at the temple claimed that the property is worth far more. The tax assessment value of the land is $3.5 million and the temple had the property appraised at $4 million. The temple has argued the land is worth as much as $5.5 million. G&G did garner an appraisal of the property at $2.4 million, but the court noted in its decision that the appraiser had “never inspected the property.” The court also noted that while G&G published a notice of the sale in a newspaper, the lender “did not engage a real estate agent to market the property to potential developers.”

Under New Hampshire statute and case law a mortgagee “must exert every reasonable effort to obtain a fair and reasonable price under the circumstances, even to the extent, if necessary, of adjourning the sale or of establishing an upset price below which it will not accept any offer.”

In its decision, the court wrote “a reasonable jury could find that G&G failed to take any efforts beyond those minimally required to notice the sale, obtained an appraisal it knew to have been inadequately performed that stated a value it knew was far below the property’s true value, and obtained a price that was inconsistent with every other indication of value of which it was aware.”

“We’re as pleased as we could be,” said temple member Rita Sud. “This is really a best-case scenario for us.”

Joshua Gordon, the temple’s Concord-based appellate attorney, did not return a phone call, but in a statement he said, “The Supreme Court order allows Saraswati to proceed to trial on the merits and seek relief either by voiding the foreclosure sale or getting damages.”

But while the decision marks a key legal victory for the temple, it is unlikely that temple members will be moving back to Epping anytime soon, as the case remains mired in litigation. The case largely hinges on legal action the temple plans to file in Virginia, where the temple has been barred from filing claims of fraud and breach of contract by the lender. The temple plans to file litigation in that state in an effort to lift those orders so it can pursue its fraud and breach of contract claims. But even if that legal effort is successful, the temple would then have to return to court in New Hampshire in hopes of getting the foreclosure sale thrown out or collecting damages.

“We are aggressively pursuing legal remedies in Virginia that will allow the temple to bring in claims that G&G breached its contract with the temple and forced them into default, bankruptcy and foreclosure,” Gordon said. “A favorable outcome of the legal action in Virginia will likely have an impact on the New Hampshire proceeding.”

Officials from Gourley & Gourley did not return phone calls. But in January, a company representative told INDIA New England that the lender had acted in good faith and suggested the temple was using its religious status to gain sympathy from the community.

“It’s a simple story: A loan was made, the loan was not paid back, the land was collateral, and we exercised our rights,” Gourley & Gourley representative Demetris Voudouris said at the time.

Asked how the temple was continuing to fund its numerous legal battles, temple member Rita Sud said, “We’ve had the support of the Hindu community and we’re very grateful for that support.”

“I knew that the Supreme Court would not allow injustice to prevail,” said the temple’s priest Pandit Ramadheen Ramsamooj in a statement. “I thank the justices for their scrutiny of this case and their recognition that [trial court] Judge McHugh should not have dismissed our case in the first place.”

According to Sud, Ramsamooj is no longer in the country and the temple is no longer actively meeting.

The case is similar to one involving the same lender in which a Maryland family lost a 125-acre farm that had been in their family for over 170 years. In that case, the Hearn family of Laurel, Md., argued that G&G essentially forced them to default on a $4.5 million loan by requiring them to pay all interest upfront and requiring them to “invest” $300,000 in the lender. After the family defaulted on the loan, G&G purchased the property at auction for $12.5 million, a fraction of the farm’s appraised value of $60 million. Like the Saraswati Mandiram temple, the Hearns are now fighting the foreclosure in court.

The company also faces allegations of securities violations in at least six states.

source: http://IndiaNewEngland.com [2]

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