Action by creditors to collect from a judgment debtor based on a fraudulent transfer of property under MCL 566.34; Motion by the court-appointed receiver/attorney seeking fees & costs related to the sale of the property; Appellate jurisdiction; MCR 7.203; Standing; Allstate Ins Co v Hayes; Whether the receiver was an “aggrieved party”; Federated Ins Co v Oakland Cnty Rd Comm’n; Role of a court-appointed receiver; Ypsilanti Fire Marshal v Kircher (On Reconsideration); A receiver’s right to compensation for their services & expenses; Cohen v Cohen; Principle that a receiver need not be an attorney; Scope of a receiver’s duties; Kurrasch v Kunze Realty Co

The court held that appellant-court-appointed receiver/attorney lacked standing to challenge the distribution of proceeds after the sale of property, and that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by reducing his hours and his hourly rate. Plaintiff, the creditor in the underlying action, requested that a property conveyance among defendants-debtor and transferees be set aside as a fraudulent transfer. The trial court agreed and appointed appellant as a receiver to sell the property. Upon selling the property, appellant requested a little more than $20,000 in fees and costs. Finding his hourly rate “not reasonable,” the trial court reduced it, along with a reduction in total hours. It eventually awarded him a little over $13,000. On appeal, the court first found appellant was not the proper party to challenge the full distribution. Because he “is charged with being neutral and does not represent the interests of the individual creditors, [he] does not have an interest in how the proceeds are distributed to” the other parties. His “only interest in the trial court’s order is the amount of his own compensation . . . .” As such, he lacked “standing to challenge whether the trial court’s order distributing the remaining proceeds accurately” reflected other interests or “equitable or proportionate shares of the remaining proceeds.” The court next rejected appellant’s claim that the trial court erred by reducing his requested compensation rate and number of invoiced hours. He claimed the trial court erred because “the field of receivership is not listed as a field of practice in the 2017 Economics of Law Practice Attorney Income and Billing Rate Summary Report . . . ,” noting the rate of $195 an hour is not otherwise mentioned in the report. “Receivership is not, strictly speaking, the practice of law, and nonlegal professionals are frequently appointed by courts to serve as receivers. Therefore, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by determining that the rate charged in this case was not reasonable for receivership compensation, particularly where the receivership estate is not large, the receiver’s duties are not particularly complex, and the receiver’s primary duty is to sell a piece of real estate.” It also did not abuse its discretion by reducing his hours on the basis that some of the “services were excessive or duplicative and that some of the services were outside the scope of” his duties. Affirmed.