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Four years after two brothers bought a former school with the aim of opening an Islamic academy, the building is at the center of a legal battle over property taxes, and has fallen into disrepair.
The legal battle stems from tax bills for 2011 and 2012, bills that the brothers say they shouldn’t have to pay. The town Tuesday moved to have a judge dismiss their tax appeal, currently in state court.
The brothers are Tariq and Kamran Farid, the owners of Edible Arrangements International. They bought the former Pine Brook/Wightwood Elementary School at 56 Stony Creek Rd. in 2010, with a plan to convert it into an Islamic school.
The brothers subsequently opened such a school in Guilford, and transferred ownership of the Branford property to a for-profit company they own. Branford then began levying taxes on the property, which the brothers appealed.
Carolyn W. Kone, the town’s attorney, moved to dismiss the entire appeal this week. She told the court that none of the plaintiffs, including the brothers, their companies or their foundation, has standing to bring the case to court. Without standing to sue, a court has no jurisdiction to hear a case. Kone outlined a series of legal issues that center on ownership, tenancy and tax-exemption status.
Amid the ongoing court case, the school has been deemed uninhabitable after two floods damaged the building. The school is empty and for sale once again.
The brothers’ attorney, Jennifer Rignoli, did not return a call for comment by press time.
No School
The town’s Planning and Zoning Board approved the plans for brothers’ proposed Branford school in November, 2009. Click here to read the story.
The Farid brothers bought the school property in January, 2010, through their non-profit charitable organization, the Farid Foundation.
On April 8, 2011, the brothers opened the Shoreline Islamic Academy at 275 Chestnut Grove Dr. in Guilford. That school is now up and running.
Town records show the brothers and their foundation quit-claimed the Branford school property on July 24, 2012, to SKF Stony Creek, LLC, a company they own, with the same address in Wallingford as the corporate headquarters of Edible Arrangements. The town attorney says SKF Stony Creek has no tax exemption status.
The town has valued the 2.76-acre school property at $1.8 million and assessed the property at $1.2 million. Barbara Neal, the town’s tax assessor, determined that the Farid brothers must pay taxes on the property because it was not tax-exempt after July 24, 2012 when the quit claim was filed.
No Taxes
The subsequent tax appeals case lists as plaintiffs SKF Stony Creek LLC., the Shoreline Islamic Academy, and Tariq Farid and Kamran Farid, Trustees of the Farid Foundation. The plaintiffs claim that the town’s tax assessment of $1.2 million is “not the percentage of its true and actual value on the assessment date, but was grossly excessive, disproportionate and unlawful.”
The plaintiffs initially appealed to the Branford Board of Assessment Appeals (BBAA), citing non-profit, tax-exempt status. The BBAA declined to hear the appeals because the property is worth over $1 million, a designation that allows the appeals board not to rule but allow the petitioners to file a tax appeal directly to the court.
The Farids were also informed that even if their case went to court, they were still required to pay 90 percent of their taxes. A year ago, on June 5, 2013, the town’s tax collector filed a tax lien against the school property.
No Standing
In her motion this week, attorney Kone argues that none of the entities listed in the appeal as plaintiffs has standing to file suit.
She argued that the Farid brothers did not actually own the property on the valuation dates of the tax years — Oct. 1, 2012 and Oct. 1, 2013 — since it had been quit-claimed to SKF Stony Creek. Kone said there are no records showing SKF Stony Creek, LLC is a non-profit entity deserving of tax exemption.
Attorneys for the Farid brothers have argued otherwise. “Because applicant Stony Creek LLC holds the subject property in trust for applicant Shoreline Islamic Academy Inc. and because the subject property is used exclusively for educational, charitable and religious purposes, the subject property is entitled to a tax exemption (under state law),” their complaint states.
If SKF Stony Creek LLC holds the property in trust, Kone says in the court documents, that “it was required to bring this case as the trustee for Shoreline.” But the LLC filed the case as an individual company. Absent that distinction, the case should be dismissed, Kone said, citing case law.
Rignoli, who represents the plaintiffs, says the Shoreline Islamic Academy, Inc., is a tax exempt public charity under section 501C(3) of the IRS code. Kone says there are no records showing SKF Stony Creek, LLC is a non-profit entity deserving of tax exemption.
In her motion, Kone argues that the Shoreline Islamic Academy is a tenant and lacks standing to sue because “neither its lease nor a notice of its lease has been filed on the land records of the Town of Branford as required by statute,” her motion to dismiss states. Without the filing, a tenant has no standing to bring a tax appeal, Kone wrote in her 10-page motion to dismiss. Kone is a partner at Brenner, Saltzman & Wallman, the New Haven law firm that represents the town.
No Safety
In recent years, the school has been damaged in two separate broken sprinkler system incidents, one in 2010 and another in February, 2011.
Anthony Cinicola, the town’s building inspector, reported at the time of the second incident that a broken sprinkler system had filled the building with roughly five feet of water. Cinicola declared the building structurally unsafe for human use earlier this year, placing a sign on the door dated January 31, 2014.
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