Residential
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March 09, 2023
What Lies Under Prime Miami Site Could Slow Towers' Rise
On one of the most desirable real estate development sites in Miami, archeologists have found well-preserved materials dating back as much as 7,000 years — pitting preservation against a three-tower project.
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March 03, 2023
Developers Score $215M Loan For 1M-Sq.-Ft. Site In Miami
A group of developers and real estate investment firms has broken ground on a new 1 million-square-foot mixed-use project in Miami, after the companies secured $215 million in construction financing from Bank OZK, according to a statement on Friday.
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March 03, 2023
Court Revives California Public Beach Harassment Case
A California state appeals panel has reinstated a case that accuses the city of Palos Verdes Estates of supporting the behavior of a local residents group that outsiders say intimated them to keep visitors from using a public beach.
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March 03, 2023
No Coverage For TCPA Settlement, Mich. Panel Affirms
A Hartford Insurance unit has no duty to cover a class action settlement stemming from a mortgage loan provider's violation of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act by its unsolicited fax advertisements, a Michigan appeals court ruled, finding the claims were excluded under its policy's advertising injury and property damage coverage sections.
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March 03, 2023
Nonprofit Urges Justices To Curb 'Avaricious' Takings
Minnesota's "avaricious" practice of allowing local governments to keep the surplus proceeds from seized property to satisfy a smaller debt violates the Fifth Amendment's takings clause, attorneys for the Atlantic Legal Foundation told the U.S. Supreme Court on Friday.
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March 03, 2023
Easement LLC Sale Gains Ruled Ordinary Income
Gains earned by a seller of interests in limited liability companies that engage in easement donation transactions counts as ordinary income, the Internal Revenue Service said in a memorandum released Friday.
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March 03, 2023
Senators Ask DOJ To Probe RealPage's Rental Price Algorithm
Four U.S. senators urged the U.S. Department of Justice to launch an investigation into property management software company RealPage Inc.'s YieldStar revenue management software, alleging that the software might be "facilitating de-facto price setting and driving rapid inflation for rental properties."
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March 03, 2023
Surveying The Aftermath: 1 Month After An Ohio Train Disaster
During the month that's passed since a Norfolk Southern train derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, and released large amounts of a variety of contaminants, there's been a dizzying flurry of emergency response actions, criticism of those actions, civil lawsuits, threats of criminal charges, questions about health risks, political jockeying and thoughts about the need for stricter regulations. Here, Law360 unpacks the chaos and takes a look ahead at what might be coming next in the East Palestine disaster story.
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March 03, 2023
Mortgage Co., Loan Officers Settle Unpaid OT Suit In Fla.
Ex-loan officers and the mortgage lender they worked for told a Florida federal judge that they had reached a settlement in the workers' suit accusing the company of illegally dissuading them from reporting overtime hours and forcing them to work off the clock without pay.
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March 03, 2023
Student Housing Co. Stiffs Workers On OT, Ill. Court Told
An off-campus student housing community operation misclassified staff as overtime-exempt, thus shorting the workers on overtime pay, a maintenance supervisor said in a proposed collective action in Illinois federal court.
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March 03, 2023
Water Rights Count As Real Property, IRS Says
Several ranch owners' rights to divert river water during a certain time of year constitutes real property for the purposes of a tax code statute on like-kind exchanges, the Internal Revenue Service said in a private letter ruling released Friday.
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March 03, 2023
Ga. Court Says Zoning Decision Wasn't Quasi-Judicial
A Georgia appellate court has affirmed the denial of Pickens County's bid to dismiss a company's suit over its denied rezoning application, ruling that the county must face the suit because the decision from the county's board of commissioners wasn't "quasi-judicial."
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March 03, 2023
EU Orders Italy To Collect Aid From Real Estate Tax Exemption
The European Commission ordered Italy to recover state aid deemed illegal that was granted to noncommercial entities as part of a real estate tax exemption, the commission said in a news release Friday.
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March 02, 2023
Noise Ruling In UC Berkeley CEQA Suit Sparks Concerns
After a state appellate panel unanimously ruled that the University of California failed to consider noise from student parties in its environmental impact review for a hotly contested student housing project in Berkeley, some legal experts say the decision blurs the line between the state's environmental quality law and private interests.
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March 02, 2023
Miami City Atty, Husband Accused Of Real Estate Scheme
Miami City Attorney Victoria Mendez and her husband, Carlos Morales, were accused this week in Florida state court by a former Miami-Dade County homeowner of using their influence to pressure the below-market sale of a home to Morales' real estate company.
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March 02, 2023
Ex-Kuwaiti Minister Accused Of Theft Seeks Calif. Case Stay
A former Kuwaiti deputy prime minister accused by his government of embezzling millions from the country's coffers and funneling them into California real estate asked a state court on Wednesday to pause his country's lawsuit against him pending resolution of consolidated federal civil forfeiture actions.
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March 02, 2023
IP Forecast: Atty's TM Fraud Fight Makes Its Way To Fed. Circ.
The Federal Circuit will consider for the first time whether the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board was wrong to wipe out a trademark because a lawyer signed a declaration about the mark without reading it. Here's a look at that case — plus all the other major intellectual property matters on deck in the coming week.
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March 02, 2023
Montana Eyes Land Use Overhaul, Surge In Housing Growth
Proponents of a Montana land use overhaul think they've created a unicorn in the legislative field: a housing production bill that is a win-win for both governments and developers, and one that has drawn little criticism as it sails through the Legislature.
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March 02, 2023
Treasury Urged To Toss 'Look-Through' Ownership Proposal
Treasury should scrap proposed rules that would, in a manner of speaking, look through ownership structures to determine whether real estate investment entities are domestically controlled — a status that includes certain tax exemptions for foreign shareholders, the American Bar Association's Tax Section recommended.
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March 02, 2023
Advocate Sues Utah Apartments For Lack Of Accessibility
The nonprofit Disability Law Center is suing the development team for the City View apartment project in St. George, Utah, alleging that it violated fair housing laws by not including wheelchair-accessible features in its units, leasing office or parking garage.
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March 02, 2023
Real Estate Rumors: Hyatt, Insite Properties, T. Boone Pickens
A Nashville developer has landed a $58 million loan for a new Hyatt property, North Carolina-based Insite Properties has sold an office building portfolio for $20 million, and late oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens' Texas ranch has been sold after five years on the market.
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March 02, 2023
US Sanctions Mexican Firms Tied To Cartel-Run Timeshare Scam
The U.S. Department of the Treasury on Thursday sanctioned eight Mexican financial services and real estate firms tied to a timeshare fraud scheme run by the Jalisco drug cartel.
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March 02, 2023
NY Real Estate Cos. Settle EEOC Sex Harassment Suit
A group of companies that manage affordable housing complexes in Kingston, New York, will pay $240,000 to end a U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission lawsuit alleging they allowed one of their founders to sexually harass female workers, the agency said Thursday.
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March 02, 2023
Texas Man Accused Of Using Rent App In Credit Card Scheme
A rent payment app company accused a Houston-area man in Texas federal court of using its app to register as a landlord and pay himself with stolen credit cards.
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March 02, 2023
Mont. Lawmakers OK Resident Income, Property Tax Rebates
The Montana Legislature approved two bills providing eligible taxpayers with income and property tax rebates.
Expert Analysis
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Property Claim Ruling Rightly Backs Texas Removal Policy
The Fifth Circuit’s recent decision in Advanced Indicator v. Acadia Insurance, allowing the insurer to remove a property damage suit to federal court, ensures that abusive practices related to weather claims will continue to be thwarted per an important chapter of the Texas Insurance Code, says Karl Schulz at Cozen.
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My Favorite Law Prof: How I Learned To Put Law Into Practice
Massachusetts U.S. Attorney Rachael Rollins looks back at how Judge Charles Spurlock's trial advocacy class at Northeastern University School of Law challenged her to apply what she had already learned about civil and criminal procedure, evidence and criminal law to solving real-world problems.
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The Thorny Road Ahead For Fractional Home Ownership
The rise of fractional home ownership services threatens to disrupt the real estate industry, but even if these services survive the volume of opposition against them, they will likely be heavily regulated, says attorney Paul Weinberg.
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Coverage Ruling Confirms Policy Ambiguities Favor Insureds
A recent Georgia federal court decision, Penn-America Insurance v. VE Shadowood, finding for the insured on a policy containing conflicting endorsements, underscores that coverage cannot be defeated by contradictory terms when policies include coverage extensions, say Shaun Crosner and Tae Andrews at Pasich.
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What To Consider When Leaving BigLaw To Go Solo
Attorneys contemplating leaving their once-ideal job in BigLaw to start their own business should take certain concrete steps before they depart, such as saving money and drafting a business plan, and prepare for some common challenges, says Claudia Springer at Novo Advisors.
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Prepping For Fair Lending Exams Amid NY Enforcement Trend
The New York Department of Financial Services has made clear that it is focused on fair lending compliance — in its recent consent order to resolve violation allegations in a state-chartered bank's indirect auto lending program — so both banks and nonbank lenders must be prepared for detailed, data-driven reviews of their lending programs, says Brian Montgomery at Pillsbury.
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My Favorite Law Prof: How I Learned Education Never Ends
D.C. Circuit Judge David Tatel reflects on what made Bernard Meltzer a brilliant teacher and one of his favorite professors at the University of Chicago Law School, and how Meltzer’s teachings extended well past graduation and guided Judge Tatel through some complicated opinions.
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New-Parent Attorneys Need Automatic Litigation Stays
To facilitate parental leave for solo practitioners and small-firm attorneys excluded from the Family and Medical Leave Act's protections, the American Bar Association should amend its rules to implement automatic litigation stays for attorneys welcoming a new child, says attorney Gabriel Levy.
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Associate Skills That Impress Firms In A Cooling Job Market
With the lateral hiring market calming down and law firms no longer overlooking resume deficiencies when evaluating candidates, associates at all levels should be cognizant of the skills and attributes that make them marketable to prospective employers, says J.B. Pullias at VOYlegal.
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Certificate Of Merit Considerations In Designer Error Suits
Daniel Miktus at Akerman offers tips for bringing error and omission claims against design professionals, unpacking several state statutes that require third-party certification of the designer's failure to meet applicable standards of care.
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Judicial Minority Would Alter Jurisdiction For Foreign Cos.
While the Fifth and Eleventh Circuits recently reaffirmed that a foreign corporation may not be held liable for foreign conduct in U.S. federal court, if the U.S. Supreme Court were to adopt an emerging minority view, it could reshape the personal jurisdiction landscape established by the court's seminal International Shoe v. Washington ruling, says Andrew Rhys Davies at Allen & Overy.
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High Court Could Resolve Thorny Atty-Client Privilege Issue
The U.S. Supreme Court recently granted review in a federal grand jury proceeding that presents a rare opportunity to clarify — and possibly significantly expand — the scope of the attorney-client privilege for complex mixed-purpose communications with counsel, says David Greenwald at Jenner & Block.
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Refining Info Governance As E-Discovery Gets More Complex
Courts are increasingly requiring litigants to produce chats and other conversations recorded on business collaboration platforms as evidence, so companies should develop strategies for preserving and organizing such data to timely comply with e-discovery requests and to protect sensitive information, say attorneys at Akerman.