| We Buy Now, LLC v Cadlerock Joint Venture, LP |
| 2007 NY Slip Op 09580 [46 AD3d 549] |
| December 4, 2007 |
| Appellate Division, Second Department |
| We Buy Now, LLC, Respondent, v Cadlerock JointVenture, LP, Appellant, et al., Defendants. |
—[*1] Joseph J. Haspel, Goshen, N.Y., for respondent. K.D. Rothman, P.C., Nanuet, N.Y., for defendant Searchworks Abstract, Inc.
In an action, inter alia, for a judgment declaring that the defendant Cadlerock Joint Venture,LP, does not have a valid lien against the subject real property, Cadlerock Joint Venture, LP,appeals from so much of an order of the Supreme Court, Rockland County (Weiner, J.), enteredAugust 16, 2006, as granted the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment.
Ordered that the order is affirmed insofar as appealed from, with costs to the respondent, andthe matter is remitted to the Supreme Court, Rockland County, for the entry of a judgmentdeclaring that the defendant Cadlerock Joint Venture, LP, does not have a valid lien against thesubject real property.
"A judgment is not docketed against any particular property, but solely against a name, and ifthat name is incorrectly set forth, a purchaser in good faith should not be the one to suffer; butrather the creditor, who should see to it that the docketing is in the correct name of the debtor, ifit is to be notice to subsequent purchasers" (Grygorewicz v Domestic & Foreign DiscountCorp., 179 Misc 1017, 1018-1019 [1943]). It is the duty of a judgment creditor who seeks tocreate a lien on real property held by the judgment debtor to take steps while the action for amoney judgment is pending to ensure that the judgment reflects the full name of the judgmentdebtor (see Bernstein v Schoenfeld, 37 Misc 610, 613 [1902], affd 81 App Div171 [1903]). The plaintiff demonstrated its prima facie [*2]entitlement to judgment as a matter of law by presenting evidencethat a judgment obtained by the defendant Cadlerock Joint Venture, LP (hereinafter Cadlerock),was not docketed in Rockland County under the surname of a title owner of the subject propertyin Rockland County and that, therefore, no valid lien against the property was created. Inopposition, Cadlerock failed to raise a triable issue of fact. Accordingly, the Supreme Courtproperly granted the plaintiff's motion for summary judgment.
Since this is a declaratory judgment action, we remit the matter to the Supreme Court,Rockland County, for the entry of a judgment declaring that Cadlerock does not have a valid lienagainst the subject property (see Lanza v Wagner, 11 NY2d 317, 334 [1962], appealdismissed 371 US 74 [1962], cert denied 371 US 901 [1962]). Schmidt, J.P., Rivera,Florio and Balkin, JJ., concur.