Dallam v. Hedrick, 16 Kan. App. 2d 258, 826 P.2d 511 (Kan. Ct. App. 1990)
Legal information, not legal advice. Verify against the cited opinion.
- Citation: 16 Kan. App. 2d 258, 826 P.2d 511 (1990)
- Court / Year: Kansas Court of Appeals, 1990
- Topic tags: forfeiture | foreclosure
- Facts: John P. Dallam III sold residential property to Lance and Nancy Hedrick under an installment contract for deed ($57,400 price). The Hedricks defaulted; by the time of default they had made 24 monthly payments but had reduced principal by only roughly 8% of the purchase price. Dallam sought to enforce forfeiture.
- Holding: Forfeiture was permitted. A buyer is not automatically entitled to equitable foreclosure; where the buyer has not made “substantial payment,” the contract “will ordinarily be enforced according to its terms.” The trial court did not abuse its discretion in finding ~8% paid was not substantial payment, so forfeiture (rather than equitable foreclosure with redemption) was the proper remedy.
- Reasoning: The court limited the broad language of mustard-v-sugar-valley-lakes-1981. Equitable foreclosure protects a buyer’s accumulated equity; where the down payment is negligible and payments are few or irregular — to the manifest loss of the seller — there is little equity to protect, and equity will not rewrite the parties’ forfeiture bargain.
- Practical impact for CFD operators/buyers: Establishes the pivotal Kansas “substantial payment” inquiry. Whether a defaulted CFD buyer gets equitable foreclosure-with-redemption or loses everything via forfeiture turns on how much has been paid (plus default length, improvements, maintenance) — a discretionary, not bright-line, test, though ~8% was held insufficient.
- Good-law status: Good law; the controlling refinement of the Kansas equitable-foreclosure doctrine, applied in barnett-v-oliver-1993.
- Source (retrieved): https://static.case.law/kan-app-2d/16/cases/0258-01.json · Verified: 2026-06-08
Jurisdictions that follow / cite: kansas
Disclaimer. Legal information, not legal advice. Confirm the opinion is still good law before relying on it.