scpetition_valuation.pdf
Byron Methner Petitioner V Township Of Denton Respondent · 26-002884-TT
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STATE OF MICHIGAN GRETCHEN WHITMER DEPARTMENT OF LICENSING AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS MARLON I. BROWN, DPA GOVERNOR LANSING DIRECTOR PROPERTY TAX APPEAL PETITION FORM VALUATION / UNCAPPING APPEAL MTT DOCKET NO. Petitioner’s Contact Information: Filer Type: Local Unit of Government: Individual First Name M.I. Last Name Byron Methner Mailing Address (No., Street, P.O. Box or Rural Route) 726 E Surrey Rd. City or Town State ZIP Code Farewell Michigan 48622 Telephone Number 989-621-8220 E-mail Address steven.jacobs@sbdetroit.com Petitioner’s Attorney/Authorized Representative’s Contact Information, if any: First Name M.I. Last Name Steven Jacobs Firm Name (if any) Schenk & Bruetsch, PLC Address (No., Street, P.O. Box or Rural Route) 211 W Fort St. Ste 1410 City or Town State ZIP Code Detroit Michigan 48226 Telephone Number 313-774-1000 E-mail Address steven.jacobs@sbdetroit.com Subject Property Information: How many parcels are you appealing? If you are appealing more than one parcel, are they contiguous or adjoining? 1 *If no, you must file separate appeals for each parcel No Property Address (No., Street) 212 Glendale Dr. 1 of 4
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STATE OF MICHIGAN GRETCHEN WHITMER DEPARTMENT OF LICENSING AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS MARLON I. BROWN, DPA GOVERNOR LANSING DIRECTOR City or Town County State ZIP Code Prudenville Roscommon Michigan 48651 Taxing Authority (City or Township) Township Of Denton (ROSCOMMON) Check which of the following you are appealing: (check all that apply) Uncapping of Taxable Value Please Explain the Reason for this Appeal: Byron Methner was the sole title holder in the two following properties: 212 Glendale Dr., Prudenville, MI, 48651 and 764 Springfield, Prudenville, MI, 48651. In each instance, the conveyance to and from Methner Consulting LLC had no legal effect upon title. In 2017, Byron purchased 212 Glendale Dr. as Byron Methner dba Methner Consulting, LLC (“LLC”). See Warranty Deed recorded on June 13, 2017, in liber 1162, page 1910, Roscommon County Records. However, the LLC was not in existence at that time. Exhibit A. Nor had the entity filed a Certificate of Assumed Name. The LLC was designed to survive for a period of 5 years. Id. The entity took no subsequent action regarding the conveyances. In 2025, Byron Methner issued corrective deeds, attempting to cure title deficiencies, conveying the same properties from Methner Consulting, LLC to Byron Methner. Exhibit B. The deeds prompted a property tax uncapping event, which Byron is now appealing. Exhibit C. ARGUMENT I. THE UNCAPPING OF THE PROPERTIES’ TAX VALUATION IS IMPROPER BECAUSE THE CONVEYANCES FROM METHNER TO THE LLC ARE VOID AB INITIO AND OWNERSHIP REMAINED WITH METHNER. An uncapping of a property’s taxable value under MCL § 211.27a only occurs after a transfer of ownership. MICH. COMP. LAWS § 211.27a (2025). Courts have interpreted “transfer of ownership” under the statute to mean, “[t]o convey or remove from one place or one person to another; to pass or hand over from one to another, esp[ecially] to change over the possession or control of.” Zenti v. City of Marquette, 329 Mich. App. 258, 266 (2019) (citing BLACK’S LAW DICTIONARY (11th ed. 2019)). Thus, a “transfer of ownership” requires the ownership interest in a property to change hands between two distinct people. See id. As the subsequent discussion will demonstrate, no such transfer occurred in the present case. Byron Methner’s ownership in the two properties was unchanged by the conveyances. The subsequent deeds naming Methner as the grantee constituted nothing more than a corrective deed to reflect the correct, existing ownership interest held by Methner but realistically, there was no transfer of ownership. In consideration of these facts, uncapping the properties’ tax values was improper as there was no transfer of ownership. A. Methner Consulting was not a legally recognized entity at the time of conveyance and therefore never held title to the properties. It has long been established that a valid deed to convey title requires the grantee to have the “capacity to hold title.” See 1 JOHN G. CAMERON, JR., MICHIGAN REAL PROPERTY LAW, THE INSTITUTE OF CONTINUING LEGAL EDUCATION, 342 (2005) (citing MICH. COMP. LAWS § 566.106-109). Moreover, when the grantee of a deed is an entity, and that entity is not legally recognized, the deed is a nullity. Id. (citing Skinner v. Grace Church, 54 Mich. 543, 546 (1884)). Thus, absent a legally recognized grantee, a deed is void and the grantor remains as the title owner. Id. See also RESTATEMENT (FOURTH) OF PROP. § 7.1 (A.L.I. 2024). At the time of the purported conveyances here, Methner Consulting, LLC was not a recognized legal entity and thus did not have the capacity to hold title to the properties. Methner Consulting had not filed with the state to be registered as either a DBA or an LLC before Byron Mether conveyed these properties. Consequently, Methner Consulting was not legally in existence when named the grantee in the deeds, rendering them void. See Skinner, 54 Mich. at 546. See also MICH. COMP. LAWS § 450.4202 (2002) (stating that an LLC’s existence begins on the effective date of its articles of organization). The Michigan Supreme Court settled this principle requiring an existing grantee in Skinner v. Grace Church. Skinner, 54 Mich. at 546. In this case, the court rejected the validity of a deed conveying title to a church before it was properly organized, stating “[i]t is a well-settled rule of the common law that a deed running to a grantee not in existence is a nullity.” Id. (emphasis added). The court concluded that the church held no title, even after its organization, because no conveyance was made to the church once it was legally recognized. Id. The Skinner court also demonstrates a significant point in its reasoning. In interpreting a statute stating it is unlawful for “[a] church to acquire the title to any property until such [organization] articles are recorded,” the court dismissed the idea that ownership vests upon the moment of organization. Id. This is made clear by the court’s emphasis that the church “acquired the right to take title” once it was organized but took no action to do so. Id. Thus, the court rejected that simply organizing after the conveyance is sufficient to obtain title from a prior deed. Id. The Michigan Supreme Court’s findings are directly applicable here. Like the church in Skinner, Methner Consulting was not legally organized at the time of conveyance and took no steps to take title through a subsequent deed. See id. Thus, under Skinner, Methner Consulting’s later organization as an LLC bears no consequence on the nullity of deeds. Id. Further, the exception provided by MCL § 565.604 does not conflict with this finding because this statute does not expressly concern LLCs. MICH. COMP. LAWS § 565.604 (1933). The statute creates an exception in which a conveyance made in good faith with valuable consideration is not made wholly void due to mistake or failure to comply with statutory requirements to organize or incorporate. Id. However, the statute explicitly notes that this provision applies to conveyances to “any religious, fraternal, scientific or benevolent society, or corporation.” Id. The statute does not extend this exception to LLCs, nor has any case sought to argue the statute’s application to LLCs. See id. See e.g., Andrews v. Brown, 2020 Mich. App. LEXIS 7059 (2020) (unpublished) (concerning a defect in notarization and applying § 565.604); Taunt v. Cent. Mortg. Co. (In re Miller), 2015 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 147325 (2015) (applying § 565.604 to a failure to satisfy statutory requirements regarding notarization and acknowledgment). Thus, MCL § 565.604 does not make the conveyances to Methner Consulting, LLC valid. This interpretation of MCL § 565.604 can be made clear by analogy to a case in the wills and trusts context. In In Re Mary E. Griffin Revocable Grantor Trust, 281 Mich. App. 532 (2008) rev’d, 483 Mich. 1031 (2009). In this case, the respondent argued that a statute regarding the validity of no-contest clauses in wills applies to those clauses in trust agreements as well. Id. at 538. The Michigan Supreme Court said no. In Re Mary E. Griffin Revocable Grantor Trust, 483 Mich. 1031 (2009). The court reversed the Michigan Court of Appeals’ decision, relying on Justice Zahra’s dissenting opinion. Id. He rejected the majority, stating that the statute “expressly applies to a ‘provision in a will,” not a trust. In Re Mary E. Griffin, 281 Mich. App. at 542 (Zahra, J., dissenting). He asserted that reading the 2 of 4
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STATE OF MICHIGAN GRETCHEN WHITMER DEPARTMENT OF LICENSING AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS MARLON I. BROWN, DPA GOVERNOR LANSING DIRECTOR statute to apply to legal instruments not explicitly included “is an unwarranted expansion” of the statute. Id. at 543 (citing Roberts v. Mecosta Co. Gen. Hosp., 466 Mich. 57, 63 (2002) (“stating that nothing will be read into a clear statute that is not within the manifest intention of the Legislature as derived from the language of the statute itself.”). Justice Zahra reasoned this by affirming that “[h]ad the Legislature intended to allow challenges in the face of [a no-contest] provision within a trust agreement, there is no dispute that it could have done so.” Id. (emphasis added). The same can be said here. If MCL § 565.604 was intended to apply to business entities outside of corporations, the Legislature would have included it. See id. MICH. COMP. LAWS § 565.604 (1933). See also Anderson v. C.I.R. 123 T.C. No. 12, n.13 (2004) (“[w]here the statutory language appears clear, we would require unequivocal evidence of legislative purpose before construing the statute so as to override the plain meaning of the words used therein.”); Banhart v. Peabody Coal Co., 537 U.S. 149, 168 (2003) (stating that expressio unius est exclusion alterius justifies the inference that when items are of an associated group are not mentioned, they are excluded by deliberate choice). Thus, the statute does not apply here and Methner Consulting’s later organization as an LLC does not negate the fact that it never held title to the properties. In sum, the original deeds named a non-existent entity as grantee, rendering the conveyances void. As Methner Consulting never took title, and title did not vest upon organization, Byron Methner consistently remained as the owner of the properties. B. The 2025 conveyances functioned as corrective deeds and did not establish a transfer of ownership. As ownership never left Byron Methner’s hands, the 2025 deeds running from Methner Consulting, LLC to Byron acted as instruments to reflect proper title, rather than a true conveyance. A deed intended to correct a flaw in title or confirm a grantee’s already vested interest can be an appropriate instrument to cure a defect in title. See Diehlman v. Dwelling-House Ins. Co., 78 Mich. 141, 144 (1889) (finding that a corrected deed was appropriate when the parties acted in good faith and the purpose of the deed was to correct an erroneous description of the land conveyed). Moreover, this case is plainly distinguishable from others arguing an exception to tax uncapping by corrective instruments. In Lewallen v. Twp. of Porter, 2014 Mich. App. LEXIS 324 (Ct. App., Feb. 20, 2014) (unpublished), the court rejected a corrective deed that was filed after a previous deed triggered an uncapping event. The petitioners argued that a subsequent corrective deed should retroactively nullified the uncapping event that resulted from the prior deed. Id. at *1-3. The court held that the deed was not issued to correct a faulty description of the property, but rather to “avoid the unintended tax consequences of an unambiguous transfer.” Id. at *4-5. In contrast to Lewallen, the corrective deeds here naming Byron Methner as grantee were issued before the tax uncapping event. The 2025 deed served to “remedy a faulty description of the property,” unlike the deficient “corrective” deed in Lewallen. Id. As these deeds are sufficiently corrective in nature, and did not, by intention nor effectuation, transfer ownership through issuance of the deeds, MCL § 211.27a was not triggered. Consequently, the uncapping of the properties’ tax values was improper. See MICH. COMP. LAWS § 211.27a (2025). CONCLUSION Under traditionally held common law principles and modern statutory authority, a deed running to a nonexistent entity is void ab initio. Further, title is not automatically vested in that entity once it becomes legally recognized. Without a grantee capable of holding title, the title remains in the hands of the grantor. Applying these principles here requires a finding that Methner Consulting, LLC never obtained title to the properties at issue, and title has always remained with Byron Methner. Thus the 2025 deeds did not constitute a transfer of ownership. In consideration of these facts, the properties’ tax values were wrongly uncapped, and their previous tax values should be reinstated. Jurisdictional Issues: Did you protest the assessment at a Board of Review? Yes If Yes, check which Board of Review you attended: March If No, please check the applicable reason(s): Year(s) Under Appeal: 2026 3 of 4
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STATE OF MICHIGAN GRETCHEN WHITMER DEPARTMENT OF LICENSING AND REGULATORY AFFAIRS MARLON I. BROWN, DPA GOVERNOR LANSING DIRECTOR Valuation Information for Each Parcel under Appeal: Parcel Number: 0035330291000 Classification of Property: Real (check one) Residential (check one) Current Assessed Value as established by the Board of Review: 67600 Current Taxable Value as established by the Board of Review: 67600 What do you believe is the fair market value? 135200 Multiply the True Cash Value by .5 and enter here. This is your contention of Assessed Value. 67600 If you believe the Taxable Value differs from your contention of Assessed Value, enter your contention of Taxable Value. 37826 Electronic Signature *Typing your name below will serve as your signature Petitioner’s Signature: /s/ Steven A. Jacobs Attorney or Authorized Agent’s Signature: /s/ Fee Information: If you do not have a Principal Residence Exemption of at least 50% at the time of the filing of this petition, you are required to pay a filing fee for the filing of this appeal. The filing fee is based on the greater of State Equalized Value or Taxable Value in contention. If you are appealing more than one parcel, the parcel with the highest State Equalized Value or Taxable Value in contention will be used to determine your filing fee, plus $25.00 will be added for each additional parcel being appealed. Property tax appeal: Residential** Non-Residential SEV or TV in contention* Filing fee*** Filing Fee** $100,000 or less...........................................................................................$ 125.00 $250.00 $100,000.01 to $500,000.00.........................................................................$ 200.00 N/A More than $500,000…..................................................................................$ 300.00 N/A Does the subject property have a principal residence exemption of at least 50% as of the date of the filing of this petition? No 4 of 4