Charging Orders Affirmed

Charging Orders Affirmed

In this third appeal of a family dispute, the Washington Court of Appeals affirmed the issuance of a charging order in support of certain judgments graned to one sibling against another. Bangasser. v. Bangasser, 2019 WL 5112459 (Wash. Ct. App. Oct. 14, 2019).

As the court noted, this is the third appeal in this case. Thomas Bangasser served as the general partner of Midtown Limited Partnership, a partnership that held certain commercial real estate in Seattle. The limited partners in that partnership were Thomas’ siblings or entities owned by those siblings. Various of the siblings had made personal loans to Thomas, which loans were never repaid. Ultimately, the limited partners removed Thomas as the general partner, and he brought suit alleging that his removal was in violation of the partnership agreement. Roughly coincident in time, the siblings who had loaned money to Thomas, brought suit to enforce the promissory notes and to collect thereon.

Ultimately, Midtown would sell its real estate for a total of some $23,300,000. In support of the judgments enforcing the promissory notes, the court issued charging orders against Thomas’ distributions. The limited partnership deposited approximately one half of his anticipated proceeds from the sale in court against a potential claim of a purported transferee of a portion of Thomas’ interest in the limited partnership.

The decision affirmed the validity of the charging orders, including that they could be used to collect attorney’s fees pursuant to the promissory notes Thomas had executed.