Dulgarian v. City of Providence, 507 A.2d 448 (R.I. 1986)
Legal information, not legal advice. Verify against the cited opinion.
- Citation: 507 A.2d 448 (R.I. 1986) — decided April 11, 1986.
- Court / Year: Supreme Court of Rhode Island, 1986.
- Topic tags: equitable_interest | equitable_conversion
- Facts: A dispute over the City of Providence’s sale of the former Summit Avenue School property: the city accepted a bid and entered an executory purchase agreement with the buyer (the Miriam Hospital), and the question was whether procedural defects, or a Home Rule Charter provision enacted after the contract formed, could retroactively void the sale. The court held the buyer had become the equitable owner on contract formation and rejected the retroactive-invalidation arguments. (Confirmed against the opinion via Harvard Caselaw Access Project.)
- Holding (as relied upon): The case is cited for the equitable-conversion proposition that the vendee in an executory contract for the sale of land becomes the equitable owner of the land, and the vendor holds legal title merely as security for the purchase price. This is the doctrinal basis on which the Rhode Island jurisdiction page classifies the contract-for-deed remedy regime as treat_as_mortgage (equitable mortgage).
- Reasoning: Equitable conversion: upon execution of an enforceable land-sale contract, equity treats the buyer as the owner of the realty and the seller’s retained legal title as a security interest for the unpaid price. The court’s own language: “the vendee in an executory contract for the sale of land becomes equitable owner of such land” and “the vendor holds legal title merely as security for the purchase price,” relying on Jakober v. E.M. Loew’s Capitol Theatre, Inc., 107 R.I. 104, 110 (1970).
- Practical impact for CFD operators/buyers: Because the seller’s title is characterized as security, a defaulting installment-land-contract buyer in Rhode Island is an equitable owner, not a mere tenant — the doctrinal hook for resisting a strict, self-executing forfeiture and arguing for a mortgage-style foreclosure that protects the buyer’s equity (compare skendzel-v-marshall-1973, sebastian-v-floyd-1979). No Rhode Island decision, however, has squarely applied this to enforce or refuse a CFD forfeiture clause.
- Good-law status: good. The full opinion was retrieved and the equitable-owner / security-title holding language was confirmed verbatim against the text (Harvard Caselaw Access Project, 507 A.2d 448 (R.I. 1986)). The equitable-conversion rule it states rests on still-good Rhode Island authority (Jakober, 1970) and remains settled law. Caveat on scope: the holding arose in a municipal property-bid / equitable-conversion dispute, not a defaulted installment-land-contract forfeiture case, so its extension to CFD default remedies is doctrinal inference (see rhode-island §3), not a direct CFD holding.
- Source (retrieved): Full opinion via Harvard Caselaw Access Project, https://static.case.law/a2d/507/cases/0448-01.json · Verified: 2026-06-08 (full opinion text and holding language confirmed).
Jurisdictions that follow / cite: rhode-island
Disclaimer. Legal information, not legal advice. The equitable-conversion holding is confirmed against the opinion, but note its scope: it did not arise from a defaulted contract-for-deed forfeiture, so its application to CFD remedies is doctrinal inference. Confirm before relying on it in a transaction.