Residential
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October 01, 2024
McElroy Deutsch Must Face 'Malicious' Claim From Fired Exec
A former business development director from McElroy Deutsch Mulvaney & Carpenter LLP has been given the go-ahead from a New Jersey state judge to bring a malicious-prosecution claim against the firm in litigation over her and her husband's alleged multimillion-dollar embezzlement from the firm.
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October 01, 2024
Foreclosure Class Wants To Stop Mich. Atty's Victim Outreach
Lawyers behind a proposed tax foreclosure class action in Michigan federal court have said an attorney who recently secured a settlement in a similar case sent a misleading solicitation letter to a client in a bid to undermine the proceedings.
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September 30, 2024
New Calif. Law Limits Warehouse Builds, Experts Say
With Gov. Gavin Newsom's signature Sunday, California has enacted broad restrictions on warehouse development that could pack new projects into commercial areas away from homes, schools and parks, frustrating both business and environmental groups.
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September 30, 2024
Faced With $100M In Unpaid Rent, DC Plans ERAP Reforms
Washington, D.C., officials plan to reform the city's Emergency Rental Assistance Program, saying changes made to it during the COVID-19 pandemic have led to an unsustainable situation where affordable-housing landlords across the district are owed about $100 million in unpaid rent.
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September 30, 2024
Akerman Guides Developer's $165M Fla. Land Purchase
Akerman LLP advised developer GT USA on the company's $165 million purchase of over 2,300 acres of Lake County, Florida, land, the law firm announced on Monday.
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September 30, 2024
NYC Public Housing Tenants Defend Rental Assistance Suit
New York tenants have urged a federal court not to toss their claims that the New York City Housing Authority failed to recalculate rents for residents whose income levels fell during the pandemic, saying their claims aren't time-barred because named tenants' applications are still pending.
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September 30, 2024
NY Man Must Face Brownstone Deed Theft Charges
A New York state court on Monday denied a Long Island man's bid to escape charges accusing him of using forgery and shell companies to steal two brownstone buildings in Harlem that are worth millions of dollars, disagreeing with the man's argument that the case was too stale to prosecute.
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September 30, 2024
Mich. Justices Give Condo Drowning Suit Another Chance
The Michigan Supreme Court on Monday remanded a premises liability lawsuit against a condominium owners association that was brought by the estate of a member, saying an appeals court should take into account the justices' recent ruling that condo associations have a duty to exercise reasonable care to protect condo owners in shared spaces.
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September 27, 2024
Homeowners Can Use Reservation Roads During Tribal Fight
A Wisconsin federal judge has ruled that non-Indian homeowners in the town of Lac du Flambeau may continue to drive on four roads within a Chippewa reservation as the U.S. government joins the tribe in its fight against the town over their respective rights to access.
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September 27, 2024
New Orleans Inspector Indicted For Bribing Top City Official
A New Orleans resident and his home inspection company were indicted in Louisiana federal court Friday on charges that he operated a yearslong scheme of taking bribes to let unlicensed electricians work on hundreds of homes and bribing top city officials to look the other way.
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September 27, 2024
Fla. Timeshare Biz Wins $1.3M Fee Award In False Ad Suit
A Florida federal judge has awarded more than $1.3 million in attorney fees to a timeshare company that prevailed in a lawsuit against a Wyoming company over a false advertising scheme encouraging customers to stop paying for their properties, after agreeing the marketers pursued an "exceptionally weak case" that would not succeed.
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September 27, 2024
Mo. Tenants OK Rent Strikes Against Fannie-Backed Buildings
Tenants in Kansas City, Missouri, voted to authorize rent strikes beginning Tuesday at two multifamily properties backed by Fannie Mae loans, in what organizers say would be part of a coordinated effort to target bad actors benefiting from federally-supported loans.
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September 27, 2024
La. Property Owners Fight Arbitration Of $40M Coverage Row
Dozens of companies seeking insurance payouts for damage caused by hurricanes Ida and Zeta urged a Louisiana federal court not to push their $40 million suit to arbitration, pointing to a clause in their policy allowing them to bring suit over money owed in any U.S. court.
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September 27, 2024
Constitution Permits Blocked Anti-Laundering Law, Panel Told
The U.S. government urged the Eleventh Circuit on Friday to reinstate the Corporate Transparency Act passed in 2021, arguing that the anti-money laundering law is within Congress' powers to regulate economic activity and necessary to have businesses report beneficial ownership to combat crimes like tax evasion and terrorist financing.
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September 27, 2024
RealPage Wants DOJ Antitrust Case Moved To Tennessee
RealPage has asked a North Carolina federal court to transfer the government's antitrust case against it to Tennessee, where private litigation has been playing out over claims the software company helps residential landlords fix rental prices.
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September 27, 2024
Hurricane Helene Losses Could Exceed $5B: Market Analyst
The losses from Hurricane Helene, a Category 4 storm that slammed into Florida's panhandle Thursday evening, could exceed $5 billion and challenge insurers dealing with high reinsurance costs, according to an early estimate from the insurer credit rating company AM Best.
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September 27, 2024
Homebuilder Says NC Developer Reneged On $62M Land Deal
Homebuilder Meritage Homes of the Carolinas Inc. accused a North Carolina developer on Friday of defaulting on a more than $61 million land development deal by failing to subdivide nearly 200 acres of land into a residential community with 785 lots.
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September 27, 2024
Property Plays: Gencom, A. Walker & Co., Capital Square
Property Plays is a weekly roundup of the latest loans, leases, sales and projects around the country. Send your tips — all confidential — to realestate@law360.com.
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September 27, 2024
NYC Mayor's Zoning Reform Goes Forward Amid Indictment
A zoning reform proposal spearheaded by New York City Mayor Eric Adams was approved Sept. 25 by the City Planning Commission, with the City Council set to consider it next, a development that was marred by an indictment unsealed in Manhattan federal court the following morning accusing Adams of corruption and fraud.
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September 27, 2024
Seward & Kissel Adds Ex-A&O Shearman Counsel In NY
Seward & Kissel LLP announced on Thursday the hiring of a former attorney at Allen Overy Shearman Sterling as special counsel in its real estate group out of New York.
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September 26, 2024
Round Up: Insurance Highlights At Climate Week NYC
The value of insurer climate risk disclosures, strengthening infrastructure and communicating climate risks were among the top issues that insurance industry officials, elected officials, and regulators highlighted at this year's edition of Climate Week in New York City.
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September 26, 2024
Colo. Property Tax Deferral Program Could Balloon, Panel Told
Use of a property tax deferral program in Colorado is expected to rise under a recent legislative change opening it to nearly all property owners, the state's treasurer told a legislative commission Thursday, calling the extent of the program's growth difficult to predict.
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September 26, 2024
Few Investors Say They Factor ESG In Real Estate Strategies
About a quarter of surveyed fund managers and investment professionals said they considered environmental, social and corporate governance standards in real estate investments, a smaller portion than those who factor ESG in private equity strategies, a new study found.
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September 26, 2024
Multifamily Investor Nabs $137M Loan For Boston Apartments
Carmel Partners, a multifamily-focused investment firm, secured $137 million in acquisition financing to buy a 30-story apartment building in Boston, according to a Wednesday announcement by brokerage firm Walker & Dunlop Inc.
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September 26, 2024
Pa. Justices Reject New Tax Hearing For Charter School
The Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court erred in sending a charter school's retroactive property tax appeal back to a county board, because the charter school had failed to exhaust statutory remedies, the state Supreme Court ruled Thursday.
Expert Analysis
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Debate Over CFPB Definition Of Credit Is Just Beginning
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has recently worked to expand the meaning of credit, so anyone operating on the edges of the credit markets, or even those who assumed they were safely outside the scope of this regulatory perimeter, should pay close attention as legal challenges to broad interpretations of the definition unfold, says John Coleman at Orrick.
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A Closer Look At Feds' Proposed Banker Compensation Rule
A recently proposed rule to limit financial institutions' ability to award incentive-based compensation for risk-taking may progress through the rulemaking process slowly due to the sheer number of regulators collaborating on the rule and the number of issues under consideration, say attorneys at Troutman Pepper.
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The FTC And DOJ Should Backtrack On RealPage
The antitrust agencies ought to reverse course on their enforcement actions against RealPage, which are based on a faulty legal premise, risk further property shortages and threaten the use of algorithms that are central to the U.S. economy, says Thomas Stratmann at George Mason University.
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Fishing Makes Me A Better Lawyer
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.
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Circuit Judge Writes An Opinion, AI Helps: What Now?
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.
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Ohio Tax Talk: The Legislative Push For Property Tax Relief
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.
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In The CFPB Playbook: Regulatory Aims Get High Court Assist
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.
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What's New In Kentucky's Financial Services Overhaul
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.
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A Comparison Of FDIC, OCC Proposed Merger Approaches
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.
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Tax Assessment: Recapping Georgia's Legislative Session
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.
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11th Circ. Ruling May Foreshadow Ch. 15 Clashes
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.
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Teaching Yoga Makes Me A Better Lawyer
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.
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A Look At New IRS Rules For Domestically Controlled REITs
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.