Buhler v. Davis, No. M2025-00210-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Dec. 11, 2025)
Legal information, not legal advice. Verify against the cited opinion.
- Citation: Buhler v. Lefkovitz & Lefkovitz, PLLC (styled in the trial record Buhler v. Davis), No. M2025-00210-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. Dec. 11, 2025) (Clement, P.J., M.S.). Appeal from the Circuit Court for Davidson County, No. 23C1031.
- Court / Year: Tennessee Court of Appeals, Middle Section at Nashville, 2025.
- Topic tags: forfeiture · installment land contract · eviction/detainer · executory_contract_bankruptcy
- Facts: Julie Buhler bought a Nashville residence from Richard and Ellen Davis (“Sellers”) under a written “Installment Sales Agreement” dated Oct. 11, 2016: 330,000 balloon at maturity. Buhler took possession and used the home as her residence and a short-term rental. She paid the monthly installments but could not make the balloon payment; the Sellers granted two written extensions. Before the third (extended) maturity date she told the Sellers she could not and would not pay the balloon, then failed to pay both the balloon and the December 2021 monthly installment. The Sellers’ attorney sent a Jan. 24, 2022 letter demanding she vacate, refused two installment payments she wired post-maturity, and filed a Detainer Warrant in General Sessions Court, which entered judgment of possession for the Sellers. Buhler later sued her attorney for malpractice; the malpractice posture is how the contract-remedy issues reached the Court of Appeals.
- Holding: The Court of Appeals affirmed dismissal of the malpractice claim, adopting the predicate findings that on the buyer’s anticipatory repudiation and failure to pay, “the Contract terminated, and the available remedy of forfeiture was lawful at that time,” and the Sellers “were within their rights to let the agreement expire and retain the property through forfeiture without any formal legal action.” The opinion recites the related federal bankruptcy adversary ruling that the installment sales agreement was not an executory contract assumable under 11 U.S.C. § 365, because it had already terminated on the buyer’s breach.
- Reasoning: On an anticipatory breach, the non-breaching seller may (1) rescind, (2) treat the repudiation as an immediate breach, or (3) await performance and sue. The Sellers elected to terminate (demand to vacate + return of payments), so by the time the buyer retained counsel the contract was already terminated and there was no cure right to preserve. Notably, possession was recovered through a General Sessions detainer (eviction) action, not a foreclosure or vendor’s-lien suit.
- Practical impact for CFD operators/buyers: A recent, on-point illustration that Tennessee permits contractual forfeiture of an installment land contract — at least against a buyer who has repudiated and built limited equity — with possession recovered by a detainer/eviction warrant. It also shows that a terminated Tennessee CFD is not treated as an assumable executory contract in bankruptcy once the seller has elected termination. Operators should still weigh Tennessee’s strong public-policy against forfeitures (bachour-v-mason-2013) and the equity-based scrutiny a court may apply where the buyer has substantial equity.
- Good-law status: good_law (2025 decision; no contrary authority retrieved).
- Source (retrieved): https://www.tncourts.gov/sites/default/files/OpinionsPDFVersion/Majority%20Opinion%20-%20M2025-00210-COA-R3-CV.pdf · Verified: 2026-06-08
Jurisdictions that follow / cite: tennessee
Disclaimer. Legal information, not legal advice. Confirm the opinion is still good law before relying on it. This is an unpublished/intermediate-appellate decision arising in a malpractice posture; the contract-remedy statements are persuasive but fact-bound.