According to the Los Angeles County Superior Court, Claremont School of Theology must offer its Claremont, California, campus for sale to the Claremont Colleges, a neighboring consortium of schools—and for a price likely to be millions below fair market value.
The financially embattled United Methodist seminary has long been willing to sell its 16.4-acre campus near Los Angeles. But seminary leaders insisted on getting a fair market price, which they put at about $40 million.
During litigation that has gone on for years, the Claremont Colleges have stressed a 1957 legal agreement reached when the consortium sold the seminary land to relocate in Claremont. The agreement gave the consortium a repurchase right if the seminary ever put the land up for sale—and under a formula that guarantees a price far below what the seminary has been saying it needs to right itself financially.
