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A New Haven Superior Court judge has agreed to transfer a complex Branford school tax case involving Tariq and Kamran Farid, owners of Edible Arrangements International, to a special tax court in New Britain.
Judge John Joseph Nazzaro agreed earlier this week with the town’s attorney that the Islamic school tax case was sufficiently complex to require transfer to the specialized court.
On June 18, Carolyn W. Kone, who is representing the town, moved to transfer the case from New Haven Superior Court to the tax court in New Britain, a motion the brothers, their company and their foundation opposed. Click here to read the story.
The property tax case involves the former PineBrook/Wightwood Elementary School at 56 Stony Creek Rd, which the brothers purchased in 2010 with the idea of making it into an Islamic Academy. At issue is the ownership, tenancy and tax-exemption status of the school.
Kone, a partner in the law firm of Brenner, Saltzman & Wallman, the town’s counsel, argued the school has sought to achieve tax exempt status even though the application seeking tax-exempt status was filed by a non-exempt entity: the brothers’ for-profit company.
“In view of these complex issues,” Kone said in her June motion, the town requests “that the case be transferred to the tax session at New Britain, which has extensive experience and expertise in these matters.” The brothers’ attorney, Jennifer Rignoli, sought unsuccessfully to keep the case within the New Haven court jurisdiction. Judge Nazzaro issued no written decision.
On the same day, July 14, Judge Nazzaro also agreed that he would not dismiss the tax case in its entirety, as Kone had sought and Rignoli had objected to. In court papers, Rignoli said that her clients were “classically aggrieved” and have standing to sue. Click here to read about the town’s efforts to dismiss the case.
In moving to dismiss the case, Kone argued that none of the plaintiffs — including the brothers, their company, SKF Sony Creek LLC, and the Trustees of the Farid Foundation — has standing to bring the case to court. She questioned, for example, whether any of the brothers’ claims are barred by the statute of limitations.
Town records show that the brothers and their foundation quit-claimed the Branford school property on July 24, 2012, to their SKF Stony Creek, company, which holds the same address in Wallingford as the corporate headquarters of Edible Arrangements. Kone says there are no records showing SKF Stony Creek, LLC is a non-profit entity deserving of tax exemption.
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.
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.
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The school, which is now for sale, has fallen into disrepair. In recent years, the school has been damaged in two separate broken sprinkler system incidents, one in 2010 and another in February, 2011. The town declared the building structurally unsafe in January.
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