Defending our Client's Interest in Real Estate Partnership Dispute

Our Litigation attorneys assisted investors in Branford Manor Associates, L.P. in a complex intra-partnership dispute involving corporate governance, business tort, tax, trust, housing regulation, and injunction issues. After some 45 years of operating an 1,100-person affordable housing complex in New London together, the second- and third-generation family offices comprising the partnership could not agree on how to wind up the business.

When our clients, the general partner and several of the limited partners, resolved to sell the more than $40 million property, a group of opposed partners brought suit to enjoin the sale and to force a buyout of our clients’ interests, so that they could pursue a tax-advantaged exchange without our clients’ participation. In a multi-day trial, we vigorously defended the general partner’s right to sell the property. After prevailing on the injunction claim, we pursued a counterclaim of our clients’ own for judicial dissolution of the partnership, and worked with our clients’ out-of-state counsel to coordinate defense of a second lawsuit the other partners opened in New York. After the other side’s options were progressively cut off, the parties agreed to settle the matter on terms favorable to our clients.

“Pullman & Comley’s wise counsel and courtroom expertise were invaluable in obtaining a settlement on very favorable terms. I was thoroughly impressed and am very appreciative for their dedication and hard work.”

Jim Nicholson
Chief Executive Officer
Holrod Realty Holding Corporation