Residential
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October 18, 2024
Enforcers Fight RealPage Transfer Bid In Rent-Fixing Case
Enforcers urged a North Carolina federal court not to transfer the government's antitrust case against RealPage to the Tennessee court overseeing similar private cases, saying Congress has made it clear that public antitrust actions should not be roped into multidistrict litigation.
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October 18, 2024
Judge Excuses Nationwide From Ga. Mold Death Coverage
A Georgia federal judge found Nationwide Property & Casualty Insurance Co. has no duty to defend an apartment owner from claims in a separate lawsuit alleging the landlord failed to treat black mold or warn a tenant who died of exposure to the infestation.
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October 18, 2024
Feds Win 1st Trial In Sprawling NYC Housing Bribery Case
A former New York City Housing Authority superintendent was convicted of taking bribes to award no-bid contracts, handing federal prosecutors a win in the first trial in a case that saw 70 defendants arrested earlier this year.
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October 17, 2024
9th Circ. Upholds Wash. City's Anti-Car Camping Law
A Ninth Circuit panel has rebuffed a veteran's challenge to a Washington city's ordinance that he says displaced residents living in their vehicles, ruling Oct. 17 that the ordinance does not violate his purported right to intrastate travel, which the judges said may not exist to begin with.
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October 17, 2024
Pa. Appeals Court Stops Damaged Philly Building's Demolition
A Pennsylvania appellate court has tossed a lower court order that required the demolition of a seven-story Philadelphia apartment building that had a partial façade collapse in September 2022.
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October 17, 2024
Milton Brings High Insured Costs, Familiar Pressures To Fla.
While Florida avoided a worst case scenario following Hurricane Milton's landfall, insurance experts say that the high cost of the storm will add familiar pressures to a Florida homeowners insurance market that has been battered for years by storms.
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October 17, 2024
NJ Atty Disbarred On Charges Of Stealing Over $600K
A New Jersey attorney accused of stealing over $600,000 from several clients through fraudulent real estate transactions over the last 10 years has been disbarred in New Jersey state and federal court.
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October 17, 2024
5th Circ. Tosses Policyholder's Hurricane Coverage Suit
The Fifth Circuit affirmed the dismissal of a National Flood Insurance Program policyholder's suit seeking coverage for at least $100,000 in hurricane damage to a Mississippi beachfront property, saying it was time-barred and failed to allege any extracontractual duties.
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October 16, 2024
NYC Condo Building's Revised Ch. 11 Plan Gets Confirmation
A New York federal bankruptcy judge has confirmed the owner of a Manhattan condominium complex's revised Chapter 11 plan, signing off on the planned restructuring after initially sending it back for revisions in late September, according to a notice filed Wednesday.
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October 16, 2024
Hurricanes Stir Questions On 'Acts Of God' In Contracts
The predictability of extreme weather events is bringing renewed attention to force majeure clauses in real estate contracts and whether incidents like a pair of devastating hurricanes in Florida can really be classified as unforeseeable "act of God" events.
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October 16, 2024
Real Estate Lenders Are Borrowers In Debt Funds' Rise
Private credit may have stepped in to fill the void when banks pulled back significantly from lending to commercial property owners, but that doesn't mean banks have left the picture.
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October 16, 2024
11th Circ. Says No Claim For Taking Until Permit Is Denied
The Eleventh Circuit ruled Wednesday that Fane Lozman — houseboat owner, activist and thorn in the side of the Riviera Beach, Florida, city government — cannot yet bring his claims for a regulatory taking of his property against the city because he has not applied for a permit or zoning variance.
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October 16, 2024
Feds Deny That West Bank Sanctions Hamper Free Speech
The Biden administration rebuffed claims by a group of U.S. and Israeli citizens that a sanctions program covering extremist actors in the Israeli-occupied West Bank restricts their free speech rights, saying that merely opposing U.S. foreign policy goals isn't a sanctionable offense.
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October 16, 2024
DC Tenant Atty Says There's No Evidence Of ERAP Fraud
Washington, D.C., officials recently changed the city's Emergency Rental Assistance Program to address what they called a crisis stemming from some tenants misusing the initiative, but the district hasn't shown evidence of misuse and the updates will likely cause more harm than good, a Legal Aid DC attorney told Law360 Real Estate Authority in an interview.
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October 16, 2024
NC Panel Won't Reignite Duke Energy Case Over House Fire
A split panel of the North Carolina Court of Appeals declined to revive a liability suit brought against Duke Energy Corp. and a contractor it hired to install new meters at its customers' homes after one of those contractors allegedly caused a bed to catch fire leading to $130,000 in damage.
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October 16, 2024
Dallas Officials OK $54M Townhomes Development Project
Dallas' City Plan Commission unanimously approved Steinbridge Group's $54 million plans to develop 180 three-bedroom townhomes in the city's Capella Park neighborhood, the real estate development and investment firm announced.
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October 16, 2024
Lender To Pay $10M To Settle Birmingham Redlining Claims
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the U.S. Department of Justice said a mortgage lender the agencies accused of redlining in Birmingham, Alabama, will pay nearly $10 million and open a loan office in a majority-Black neighborhood to resolve the claims.
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October 16, 2024
Short Supply Continues To Drive Home Price Growth
Single-family home prices moderated only slightly in the third quarter of 2024, as tight supply continues to constrain the market even as mortgage rates drop, per Fannie Mae's Home Price Index.
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October 16, 2024
Barings Offers $134M Refi For NC Apartment Complex
Barings has provided a five-year, $134 million loan to refinance the debt for a 283-unit, mixed-use North Carolina apartment complex, the real estate investment management company announced.
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October 16, 2024
4th Circ. Affirms Judgment In Foreclosure Bid-Rigging Case
The Fourth Circuit backed a North Carolina federal court and tossed part of an appeal by a real estate company founder and others of a jury verdict that they rigged bids in foreclosure auctions in violation of state and federal antitrust laws.
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October 15, 2024
CFPB Funding Shouldn't Stop Texas' Fraud Suit, Judge Says
A Houston federal magistrate judge has endorsed allowing the state of Texas to proceed with a real estate fraud suit against land developer Colony Ridge, rejecting objections tied in part to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's funding from Federal Reserve "earnings."
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October 15, 2024
Realtors Ask High Court To Quash DOJ Antitrust Probe
The National Association of Realtors has petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court for review of a ruling that would allow the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division to reopen an investigation into the trade group's rules and policies after an earlier settlement.
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October 15, 2024
PE Firm Nets $300M Recapitalization For Brooklyn Tower
Alpaca Real Estate has obtained $300 million to recapitalize The Axel, a 29-story, 284-unit Class-A residential tower in Brooklyn, New York, the real estate-focused private equity firm announced Tuesday.
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October 15, 2024
Mich. Judge Unsure If PE Firm's Loan Broke Usury Law
The interest rate on a private equity firm's loan to a Detroit house-flipping venture exceeded usury limits, but it was unclear whether the lender knowingly charged an excessive rate, a Michigan state judge ruled after the case returned from a trip to the Michigan Supreme Court.
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October 15, 2024
NYC Real Estate Week In Review
Gutman Weiss and Price Law Firm are among the firms that guided the largest New York City real estate deals that hit public records last week, with three of the week's five largest deals being Brooklyn matters.
Expert Analysis
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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.
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What CRA Deadline Means For Biden Admin. Rulemaking
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.
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How New Rule Would Change CFIUS Enforcement Powers
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.
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2nd Circ. Eminent Domain Ruling Empowers Municipalities
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.