Residential

  • June 20, 2024

    NY High Court Nixes Waiver of Rent Regs Appeal Rights

    New York's highest court on Thursday invalidated a deal reached in 2000 between landlord Lew Realty LLC and a former tenant that governed a Manhattan apartment's exit from rent stabilization, after finding that the agreement improperly required the resident to waive a key protection.

  • June 20, 2024

    Ohio Landlord Settles DOJ's Sexual Harassment Suit

    A Youngstown, Ohio, landlord and a property management company settled a sexual harassment suit filed by the U.S. Department of Justice, which had claimed the landlord repeatedly sexually harassed his female tenants while working for the management company.

  • June 20, 2024

    JP Morgan Borrows $165M To Refinance Chelsea Tower

    An entity connected to JP Morgan Investment Management Inc. borrowed $165 million from The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. in order to refinance a 39-story, 387-unit residential tower in Manhattan's Chelsea neighborhood, according to official property records.

  • June 20, 2024

    Housing Crisis Needs 'Silver Buckshot' Policies, Panel Says

    It will take more than a silver bullet to confront a chronic undersupply of housing in the U.S. that's only made shelter less affordable since the pandemic, a panel of experts said Thursday.

  • June 20, 2024

    Fla. Property Owner, Insurer Settle $1.2M Ian Coverage Fight

    A QBE Insurance unit and a property owner settled their coverage dispute over the owner's claims it suffered roughly $1.2 million in losses due to Hurricane Ian, the parties told a Florida federal court.

  • June 20, 2024

    Ex-McElroy Deutsch CFO Asks To Pull 5th Amend. Assertions

    McElroy Deutsch Mulvaney & Carpenter LLC's former chief financial officer, who pled guilty to embezzling over $1.5 million from the firm in May, moved Wednesday to withdraw Fifth Amendment assertions he made in the firm's civil case against him.

  • June 20, 2024

    Landlord Group Vows To Challenge NY Town's Rent Regs Vote

    The common council of Poughkeepsie, New York, has unanimously voted to declare a housing emergency and adopt rent stabilization citywide, prompting the Hudson Valley Property Owners Association's immediate promise to file suit.

  • June 20, 2024

    Cadwalader Guides $450M Refi Deal For NYC Properties

    Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP advised a $450 million refinancing transaction for multiple apartment buildings located in New York City's Long Island City neighborhood in the borough of Queens, according to official property records.

  • June 20, 2024

    Tenn. Tenants Agree To End Wrongful Eviction Class Action

    A proposed class of Crossville, Tennessee, tenants permanently dropped their claims accusing the city and several of its officials in Tennessee federal court of wrongfully evicting them from their apartments without notifying them or issuing court orders.

  • June 19, 2024

    CBRE Economist Sees 'Extend And Pretend' Through 2025

    Despite a real estate environment heavy with affordability issues, high interest rates and sluggish movement, CBRE global chief economist Richard Barkham at this week's National Association of Real Estate Editors conference in Austin forecasted a relatively soft landing.

  • June 18, 2024

    Judge Skeptical Of Houston Developer's $2M DIP Bid In Ch. 11

    The insolvent developer of an almost-finished apartment building in Houston hit a hiccup Tuesday during its first-day hearing in a Texas bankruptcy court, where a judge indicated the company did not present enough evidence to support a nearly $2 million debtor-in-possession package from an affiliate of its subordinate lender.

  • June 18, 2024

    With New Tax Break, NYC Developers Eye Office Conversions

    Converting empty New York City office buildings into housing, in practice, is more than a little complicated, but a city-run "concierge" program for would-be developers, as well as new tax exemptions at the state level, aim to make such conversions more feasible.

  • June 18, 2024

    Condo's Historic Location Doesn't Bar Bombing Coverage

    The insurer for a Nashville, Tennessee, condominium owners association cannot use a historic structures exclusion to dodge covering the repair costs associated with damage caused by a bombing on Christmas Day 2020, a federal court ruled Tuesday.

  • June 18, 2024

    CFPB Tags Reverse-Mortgage Servicers With Permanent Bans

    The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced on Tuesday it had permanently banned Sutherland Global and NOVAD Management Consultant from reverse-mortgage servicing activities and hit Sutherland with $16.5 million in fines.

  • June 18, 2024

    Home Builders Sued For Non-FHA-Compliant Apartments

    A group of home building and financing companies including the Toll Brothers were sued by Manhattan federal prosecutors Tuesday for allegedly violating the Fair Housing Act by building residential units that weren't accessible to people with physical disabilities.

  • June 18, 2024

    Split Pa. High Court Finds Rental Registry Suit Moot

    The Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed out landlords' appeal of Pittsburgh's 2015 ordinance requiring them to list their rental units in a public registry, because it had been replaced by a newer, narrower law, but two justices said they should have ruled on the case anyway to settle whether other governments could pass similar measures.

  • June 18, 2024

    Sterling Bank Ex-CEO Won't Face Charges Over Loan Program

    The founder and former CEO of Sterling Bank and Trust, who has been investigated in connection with a fraud-plagued loan program, will not face criminal charges from the U.S. Department of Justice, according to Michigan federal court documents filed Monday.

  • June 18, 2024

    Blue States And Enviro Groups Back DOE Furnace Rule

    Several blue states and environmental and consumer groups have thrown their support behind the U.S. Department of Energy's tighter energy efficiency standards for furnaces and water heaters, telling the D.C. Circuit that challenges to the new rules are meritless.

  • June 18, 2024

    Oak Row Pays $39M For Downtown Miami Site

    Oak Row Equities bought a site in downtown Miami for $38.5 million for its upcoming 70,000-square-foot luxury multifamily housing project, the real estate developer announced Tuesday.

  • June 18, 2024

    NY High Court Backs Manhattan Housing On Garden Site

    A proposed seven-story, mixed-use, 123-unit affordable housing project in Manhattan's Nolita neighborhood shouldn't be blocked from development after New York City's government "rationally determined" that it won't negatively impact the environment in a significant way, the New York Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.

  • June 18, 2024

    DOJ Says DC Circ. Shouldn't Rethink Realtor Antitrust Probe

    The U.S. Department of Justice has told the D.C. Circuit that its April decision allowing it to reopen an investigation into the National Association of Realtors doesn't conflict with any U.S. Supreme Court or circuit court decisions and that the NAR's rehearing petition should be denied.

  • June 18, 2024

    NYC Board Votes To Raise Rents For 1M Households

    New York City's Rent Guidelines Board has voted to increase rents for the nearly 1 million households living in rent-stabilized units by 2.75% for one-year leases and by 5.25% for two-year leases.

  • June 18, 2024

    NYC Real Estate Week In Review

    Katten Muchin, Wachtel Missry and Rosenberg & Estis are among the law firms that landed work on the largest New York City real estate deals to hit public records last week, a slow period that saw only four transactions north of $10 million become public.

  • June 18, 2024

    McElroy Deutsch Says Exec Embezzled Money For Home

    McElroy Deutsch Mulvaney & Carpenter LLP has doubled down on its bid for a constructive trust on the home of two former executives accused of stealing from the firm.

  • June 18, 2024

    Mich. AG To Pursue Deadlocked Charges In Carhartt Atty Case

    Prosecutors will continue pursuing embezzlement charges against a Michigan attorney accused of stealing from his client, a former leader of the Carhartt workwear company, after a Wayne County jury couldn't reach a decision on those claims but acquitted the attorney on other charges.

Expert Analysis

  • Fishing Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Atop the list of ways fishing makes me a better lawyer is the relief it offers from the chronic stress of a demanding caseload, but it has also improved my listening skills and patience, and has served as an exceptional setting for building earnest relationships, says Steven DeGeorge​​​​​​​ at Robinson Bradshaw.

  • Circuit Judge Writes An Opinion, AI Helps: What Now?

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    Last week's Eleventh Circuit opinion in Snell v. United Specialty Insurance, notable for a concurrence outlining the use of artificial intelligence to evaluate a term's common meaning, is hopefully the first step toward developing a coherent basis for the judiciary's generative AI use, says David Zaslowsky at Baker McKenzie.

  • Ohio Tax Talk: The Legislative Push For Property Tax Relief

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    As Ohio legislators attempt to alleviate the increasing property tax burden, four recent bills that could significantly affect homeowners propose to eliminate replacement property tax levies, freeze property taxes for longtime homeowners, adjust homestead exemptions annually for inflation, and temporarily expand the homestead exemption, say Raghav Agnihotri and Rachael Chamberlain at Frost Brown.

  • In The CFPB Playbook: Regulatory Aims Get High Court Assist

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    Newly emboldened after the U.S. Supreme Court last month found that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding is constitutional, the bureau has likely experienced a psychic boost, allowing its already robust enforcement agenda to continue expanding, say attorneys at Husch Blackwell.

  • What's New In Kentucky's Financial Services Overhaul

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    Kentucky's H.B. 726 will go into effect in July and brings with it some significant restructuring to the Kentucky Financial Services Code, including changes to mortgage loan license fees and repeals of provisions relating to installment term loans and savings associations, say attorneys at Frost Brown.

  • A Comparison Of FDIC, OCC Proposed Merger Approaches

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    Max Bonici and Connor Webb at Venable take a closer look at the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s and Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's respective bank merger proposals and highlight certain common themes and important differences, in light of regulators continually rethinking their approaches to bank mergers.

  • Tax Assessment: Recapping Georgia's Legislative Session

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    Jonathan Feldman and Alla Raykin at Eversheds Sutherland examine tax-related changes from Georgia’s General Assembly — such as the governor’s successful push to accelerate income tax cuts — and suggest steps to take before certain tax incentives are challenged in the state's next legislative session.

  • 11th Circ. Ruling May Foreshadow Ch. 15 Clashes

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    The Eleventh Circuit's recent decision in In re: Talal Qais Abdulmunem Al Zawawi has introduced a split from the Second Circuit regarding whether debtors in foreign proceedings must have a domicile, calling attention to the understudied nature of Chapter 15 of the Bankruptcy Code, say attorneys at Cleary.

  • Teaching Yoga Makes Me A Better Lawyer

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    Being a yoga instructor has helped me develop my confidence and authenticity, as well as stress management and people skills — all of which have crossed over into my career as an attorney, says Laura Gongaware at Clyde & Co.

  • A Look At New IRS Rules For Domestically Controlled REITs

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    The Internal Revenue Services' finalized Treasury Regulations addressing whether real estate investment trusts qualify as domestically controlled adopt the basic structure of previous proposals, but certain new and modified rules may mitigate the regulations' impact, say attorneys at Simpson Thacher.

  • What CRA Deadline Means For Biden Admin. Rulemaking

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    With the 2024 election rapidly approaching, the Biden administration must race to finalize proposed agency actions within the next few weeks, or be exposed to the chance that the following Congress will overturn the rules under the Congressional Review Act, say attorneys at Covington.

  • How New Rule Would Change CFIUS Enforcement Powers

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    Before the May 15 comment deadline, companies may want to weigh in on proposed regulatory changes to enforcement and mitigation tools at the disposal of the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, including broadened subpoena powers, difficult new mitigation timelines and higher maximum penalties, say attorneys at Venable.

  • 2nd Circ. Eminent Domain Ruling Empowers Municipalities

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    The Second Circuit's recent decision in Brinkmann v. Town of Southold, finding that a pretextual taking does not violate the Fifth Amendment's takings clause, gives municipalities a powerful tool with which to block unwanted development projects, even in bad faith, say James O'Connor and Benjamin Sugarman at Phillips Lytle.