Residential
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April 17, 2024
Okla. Lawmakers OK Use Of Images For Property Inspections
Oklahoma would allow county assessors to inspect property remotely using aerial images taken from airplanes after an initial in-person inspection under a bill passed by the state House of Representatives and headed to the governor.
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April 17, 2024
NJ Appeals Court Backs Exemption For Adult Support Home
A New Jersey Tax Court judge was correct in finding that a residential property owned by a charity and used to house a person with intellectual and developmental disabilities was entitled to a tax exemption, a state appeals court ruled Wednesday.
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April 17, 2024
Survey Tees Up Another NY City For Rent Stabilization
A survey of rental stock in Poughkeepsie, New York, revealed a low vacancy rate qualifying the Hudson Valley city to opt in to rent stabilization should its representatives move to declare a housing emergency.
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April 17, 2024
Proptech Profile: Jurny Builds AI Base For Short-Term Rentals
Technology is an essential part of successfully running and scaling up a short-term rental portfolio, given the decentralized nature of the business with properties spread across different locations. But to date, operators have faced a fragmented landscape of tech solutions, which can greatly frustrate their efforts.
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April 17, 2024
4th Circ. Affirms No Shield From IRS For Home In Bankruptcy
A North Carolina man who filed for bankruptcy protection and owes federal tax debt cannot shield the house he owns with his wife from the Internal Revenue Service, which is pursuing the asset as a creditor in the proceedings, the Fourth Circuit affirmed Wednesday.
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April 17, 2024
Ore. City And Homeless Class Stake Spots Over Camping Ban
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Monday in a case weighing whether an Oregon city's anti-camping laws violate the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment. Here, Law360 previews the stances carved out by the city and a certified class of homeless residents.
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April 17, 2024
BH Group, Kolter Partner On $102.6M Fla. Beachfront Site
BH Group and Kolter Group said April 17 they purchased one of the few remaining ultra-luxury beachfront development sites in Florida with a $102.6 million land buy in Naples.
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April 17, 2024
An Architect's Guide To Lunar Housing
While some architects are challenging local zoning codes and designing innovative facades, the team at Bjarke Ingels Group is figuring out how to construct housing to withstand frequent meteorite attacks and one-sixth of the Earth's gravity.
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April 16, 2024
IRS Publishes 2024 Average Residence Purchase Price Data
The Internal Revenue Service published data Tuesday on the average purchase price for U.S. residences in different areas, which is used to determine whether bond interest can be excluded from gross income.
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April 16, 2024
NY Budget Deal Revives 421a Credit In Housing Supply Push
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul said state lawmakers have agreed to the terms of a state budget reviving an expired affordable housing tax credit, backing office-to-residential conversions and taking other steps to combat New York City's housing affordability crisis.
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April 16, 2024
Manufactured Housing Cos. Slam 'Nonsensical' Antitrust Suit
A mobile homes data company and multiple manufactured housing companies once again have urged an Illinois federal court to toss rent price-fixing claims brought by a proposed class of mobile home renters.
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April 16, 2024
3 Takeaways From Urban Land Institute's Resilience Summit
Real estate professionals across the country convened in New York City last week to talk about how to navigate an inconvenient truth in real estate — that extreme weather and climate change must be factored into investments. Here are three takeaways from the conference.
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April 16, 2024
Excess Carriers Say Property Co. Not Covered In Antitrust Suit
Two excess insurers said they don't owe coverage to a property management company for underlying litigation alleging a price-fixing conspiracy involving software company RealPage Inc., telling a Massachusetts federal court that a professional services exclusion in the primary policy bars coverage.
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April 15, 2024
Union Pacific Beats Most Claims In Kansas Chemical Spill Suit
A Kansas federal judge tossed most of a proposed class action's claims against Union Pacific Railroad Co., which is accused of contaminating Wichita properties by mishandling hazardous and toxic materials at an industrial railroad site located at 29th Street and Grove.
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April 15, 2024
NYC Offers 'Wholesale' Zoning Update To Boost Affordability
New York City Mayor Eric Adams and city planning officials are relying on a constellation of zoning changes that loosen parking requirements, permit more density and aid building conversions as part of a plan that could pressure state lawmakers to act on housing costs.
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April 15, 2024
Brookfield Cos. Want Va. Homebuyers' Class Action Tossed
Entities connected to Brookfield Asset Management Inc. urged a Virginia federal court to toss homebuyers' proposed class claims that the entities invalidated their home warranties by building and selling homes without having proper licenses.
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April 15, 2024
9th Circ. Says Court Must Consider Pay In Navajo Benefits Bid
The Ninth Circuit has vacated a ruling that a Navajo Nation member failed to prove he was wrongfully denied relocation benefits after the U.S. gave his ancestral lands to the Hopi Tribe, with a split panel remanding the case to federal district court with instructions to consider evidence of his income.
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April 15, 2024
Ind. Tax Board Hikes Home Value Based On Purchase Price
The Indiana Board of Tax Review increased the valuation of a couple's home based on its purchase price after finding that a sales comparison analysis by the property owners was insufficient to justify a lower value.
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April 15, 2024
Addiction Recovery Home Says City Seeks Wrongful Eviction
An addiction recovery home is suing the city of Lincoln, Nebraska, and the Lincoln-Lancaster County Planning Commission in federal court, saying they are wrongly using zoning rules in a bid to evict residents from one of its homes in violation of the Fair Housing Act and Americans with Disabilities Act.
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April 15, 2024
NYC Real Estate Week In Review
Venable and Holland & Knight are among the law firms that guided the largest real estate deals that hit New York City public records last week, a period that saw four matters north of $20 million become public.
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April 15, 2024
Clark Hill Adds Fla. Real Estate Atty With 17 Years' Experience
Clark Hill PLC has hired a longtime real estate attorney with almost two decades of experience who spent the past nine years working on transactional and other related real estate matters as a solo practitioner, the firm announced Monday.
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April 15, 2024
Justices Won't Hear Brokerage's Arbitration Claim In Fees Suit
The U.S. Supreme Court declined on Monday to hear HomeServices of America's argument that certain class members in a lawsuit over real estate agents' commissions should have been compelled to arbitrate their antitrust claims rather than taking them to a jury.
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April 15, 2024
High Court Passes On Tenants' Debt Collection Dispute
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to consider a Ninth Circuit ruling that revived a suit filed by tenants who hit a California law firm with a Fair Debt Collection Practices Act suit.
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April 12, 2024
NJ Gives Counties Power To Up Tax After Paying Off Debt
New Jersey will allow counties greater authority to impose property taxes after retiring debts under a bill signed into law by Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy.
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April 12, 2024
Feds Say Ga. Apartments Denied Wheelchair Accommodation
Federal prosecutors on Thursday hit a Savannah, Georgia, apartment complex, a local housing authority and other defendants with a Fair Housing Act complaint alleging they denied a disabled resident an accessible apartment in spite of her repeated requests that they accommodate her disability.
Expert Analysis
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La. Suit Could Set New Enviro Justice Litigation Paradigm
Inclusive Louisiana v. St. James Parish, a lawsuit filed recently in Louisiana federal court that makes wide-ranging and novel constitutional and statutory claims of environmental racism based on centuries of local history, could become a new template for environmental justice litigation against governments and businesses, say attorneys at King & Spalding.
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Lawyer Discernment Is Critical In The World Of AI
In light of growing practical concerns about risks and challenges posed by artificial intelligence, lawyers' experience with the skill of discernment will position them to help address new ethical and moral dilemmas and ensure that AI is developed and deployed in a way that benefits society as a whole, says Jennifer Gibbs at Zelle.
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Don't Forget Alumni Engagement When Merging Law Firms
Neglecting law firm alumni programs after a merger can sever the deep connections attorneys have with their former firms, but by combining good data management and creating new opportunities to reconnect, firms can make every member in their expanded network of colleagues feel valued, say Clare Roath and Erin Warner at Troutman Pepper.
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Every Lawyer Can Act To Prevent Peer Suicide
Members of the legal industry can help prevent suicide among their colleagues, and better protect their own mental health, by learning the predictors and symptoms of depression among attorneys and knowing when and how to get practical aid to peers in crisis, says Joan Bibelhausen at Minnesota Lawyers Concerned for Lawyers.
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Issues For Housing Credit Investors Following Bank Failures
Amid the uncertainty caused by the bank failures last month, low-income housing tax credit investors may want to revisit underwriting criteria for their equity guarantors and certain provisions under their partnership agreements, say Brad Butler and Maci Followell at Frost Brown.
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10th Circ. Ruling Could Gut Homeowners' Ch. 13 Safety Net
The Tenth Circuit’s recent ruling in Doll v. Goodman could spell the end of Chapter 13 protection for consumers in a number of states, and if the decision is replicated in other circuits, homeowners across the country could lose their homes for lack of a viable bankruptcy administration, says former U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Catherine Bauer, now at Signature Resolution.
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FTC Proposal Greatly Widens Auto-Renewal Regulation
The Federal Trade Commission's proposed rule on automatic renewal subscriptions would impose significant new obligations on sellers of negative option plans and expand the agency's enforcement powers, likely requiring companies to examine and change their practices, say attorneys at Squire Patton.
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Do Videoconferences Establish Jurisdiction With Defendants?
What it means to have minimum contacts in a foreign jurisdiction is changing as people become more accustomed to meeting via video, and defendants’ participation in videoconferencing may be used as a sword or a shield in courts’ personal jurisdiction analysis, says Patrick Hickey at Moye White.
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Humanism Should Replace Formalism In The Courts
The worrying tendency for judges to say "it's just the law talking, not me" in American decision writing has coincided with an historic decline in respect for the courts, but this trend can be reversed if courts develop understandable legal standards and justify them in human terms, says Connecticut Superior Court Judge Thomas Moukawsher.
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20 Years On, Campbell Holds Lessons On Reining In Ratios
Twenty years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in State Farm v. Campbell provided critical guidance on the constitutionally permissible ratio of punitive to compensatory damages — and both Campbell and subsequent federal circuit court decisions informed by it offer important pointers for defendants, say attorneys at Dechert.
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Don't Let Client Demands Erode Law Firm Autonomy
As clients increasingly impose requirements for attorney hiring and retention related to diversity and secondment, law firms must remember their ethical duties, as well as broader issues of lawyer development, culture and firm integrity, to maintain their independence while meaningfully responding to social changes, says Deborah Winokur at Cozen O'Connor.
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IRS' Cost Method Update Is Favorable For RE Developers
The Internal Revenue Service's recent update to its alternative cost method will allow real estate developers to accelerate their cost recovery of improvements in certain circumstances and make it easier for practitioners to satisfy the method's tax compliance requirements, says Benjamin Oklan at Weil.
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Federal Judge's Amici Invitation Is A Good Idea, With Caveats
An Arkansas federal judge’s recent order — inviting amicus briefs in every civil case before him — has merit, but its implementation may raise practical questions about the role of junior attorneys, economic considerations and other issues, says Lawrence Ebner at the Atlantic Legal Foundation.