Residential
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May 14, 2024
Activist Investor Pressures Proptech Co. To Privatize Or Sell
Land & Buildings Investment Management urged SmartRent Inc. to consider privatizing or selling to a bigger business, arguing Tuesday that the property technology company is delivering lackluster results, despite the platform's popularity.
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May 14, 2024
Texas City, Homeowners Get Early Win In Land Dispute
A federal judge has sided with a Texas city, a property owners association and others against a manufactured housing company's suit accusing the defendants of wrongfully impeding its development of nearly 300 lots.
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May 13, 2024
NYC Nonprofits Want Landlords' Housing Courts Suit Tossed
New York City tenant and immigrant rights nonprofits urged a New York state court to toss a suit from landlords who claim the state's court system handles eviction proceedings so slowly and inefficiently that they're deprived of their property rights.
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May 13, 2024
REIT Says Vegas Hotels Win Backs Tossing DC RealPage Suit
A real estate investment trust seeking out of the D.C. attorney general's rental algorithm price-fixing suit pointed the superior court judge to last week's decision tossing what it said are extremely similar allegations against a group of Las Vegas hotels.
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May 13, 2024
Peer Street Ch. 11 Ruling Hinges On Pro Se Creditor's Protest
A Delaware bankruptcy judge told real estate investment platform Peer Street Inc. on Monday that she would make a final ruling on confirmation of the company's Chapter 11 plan in the coming days, but only after finishing a review of a pro se creditor's complaints about the otherwise consensual wind-down deal.
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May 13, 2024
NJ Justices Hold Contract Supersedes Real Estate Wage Law
The contract a real estate agent signed deeming him an independent contractor is enough to resolve his claims of improper wage deductions, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled Monday, saying that a state three-prong test doesn't need to apply.
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May 13, 2024
JLL, Multifamily Developer Drop Row Over Procurement Fee
Jones Lang LaSalle Americas Inc. permanently dropped its Florida federal court suit accusing a multifamily developer of owing it a procurement fee after JLL secured $24 million in financing for a Sunshine State apartment complex.
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May 13, 2024
Mass. Tax Board Rejects Plea To Cut Home Valuation
A Massachusetts homeowner's argument that his property was overvalued because its assessment increased by a higher percentage than those of neighboring properties was rejected by the state's tax appeals board in a decision released Monday.
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May 13, 2024
NY Bill Seeks Property Tax Break For Upgrades To Cut Carbon
New York would create a property tax exemption for capital improvements made to residential property for the purpose of reducing carbon emissions under a bill introduced in the state Assembly.
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May 13, 2024
NJ Firm's Former Exec Says Home Purchase Not Tied To Theft
A previous McElroy Deutsch executive is fighting a claim on her house after her husband, another former firm leader, copped to stealing $1.5 million, arguing his theft began after January 2017 and therefore the firm could not show funds were used to purchase their New Jersey home in 2016.
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May 13, 2024
Justices Deny Review Bid From Convicted REIT Execs
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a bid by four incarcerated executives with Texas real estate investment trust United Development Funding to overturn a Fifth Circuit ruling upholding their convictions in a Ponzi scheme.
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May 13, 2024
Ex-Pa. City Housing Head Gets 3 Years In Prison For Fraud
The former head of an economically distressed Pennsylvania city's public housing authority was sentenced Monday to over three years in prison for bilking the agency out of $545,000 through a yearslong scheme of submitting inflated contracting bills for housing repairs to line his own pockets.
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May 13, 2024
High Court Won't Take Up Wyo. Wildfire Suit
The Supreme Court on Monday declined to review a suit by survivors of the 2018 Roosevelt wildfire in Wyoming against the U.S. Forest Service over the government's decisions in fighting the fires.
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May 10, 2024
Colo. Investor Says Fox Rothschild Atty's Missteps Cost $3M
One of three investors behind a Colorado development has filed suit against Fox Rothschild LLP and an attorney in state court, alleging that the attorney's failures led the entity to lose upwards of $3 million when a relationship with the fellow investors soured.
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May 10, 2024
Solar Co. Stockholders Claim Execs, Board Caused Losses
SunPower's current and former leadership was accused in a derivative shareholder suit of sending the residential solar power company into a financial tailspin by revising financial statements multiple times and causing the stock value to drop.
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May 10, 2024
3 Takeaways From The Real Deal's New York City Forum
Industry professionals at The Real Deal's New York City Real Estate Forum this year aired a lot of grievances about housing and development policies in the Big Apple and Empire State, though panels also touched on a major problem facing lenders.
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May 10, 2024
Ore. Court Drops Tax Value Of Rural Property
The Oregon Tax Court lowered the real market valuation of a rural property with outbuildings used for storage of a car collection, relying partially on the owner's cost approach to the value.
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May 10, 2024
Nationstar Mortgage Wants To Escape 'Junk Fee' Suit
Nationstar Mortgage LLC has asked a Washington federal judge to toss a proposed class action alleging it illegally charged homeowners a "junk fee" for written payoff quotes, saying the suit's claims fail because expedited payoff fees are not unlawful and do not breach the terms of the relevant loan agreements.
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May 09, 2024
Industry Orgs Urge DC Circ. To Ax HUD Disparate Impact Rule
Several industry associations are backing a D.C. Circuit challenge to a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development rule governing disparate impact claims under the Fair Housing Act, contending the federal agency exceeded its powers and ignored Supreme Court precedent in issuing the regulation.
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May 09, 2024
Making Borrower Contact Ex Was Reasonable, Court Told
A Connecticut woman's lawsuit accusing her mortgage servicer of forcing her to get in touch with an abusive ex-partner must be dismissed because it doesn't properly state a claim for violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the company told a federal court Thursday.
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May 09, 2024
REIT Says Insurers Must Cover Antitrust Conspiracy Claims
A real estate investment trust accused its insurers of wrongfully denying coverage for an underlying multidistrict litigation alleging that the company was part of an antitrust conspiracy to inflate rents for multifamily housing, telling a Colorado federal court that the MDL falls plainly within multiple coverage parts of its policies.
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May 09, 2024
NY Appeals Court Says Parking Garage Is Rent-Stabilized
A New York state appeals court on May 9 upheld a housing agency's decision finding that a parking garage in a building in the Bronx borough of New York City is rent-stabilized.
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May 09, 2024
NY Tribunal Affirms Couple Can't Claim Real Estate Deduction
A New York couple was correctly denied a real estate deduction on their personal income tax returns because the husband didn't qualify as a real estate professional, the state Tax Appeals Tribunal affirmed in a decision released Thursday.
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May 09, 2024
Mass. Tax Board Axes Home's Value Based On Similar Sales
A Massachusetts home was overvalued, the state Appellate Tax Board ruled, finding evidence of comparable sales presented by the homeowner to be persuasive.
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May 09, 2024
Colo. Lawmakers Approve Extended Property Tax Cuts
Colorado would extend its current temporary property tax rate reductions into 2024 and would lower tax rates for future years under legislation passed by Colorado lawmakers that could save property owners about $1 billion in its first year.
Expert Analysis
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Thomas Report Is Final Straw — High Court Needs Ethics Code
As a recent report on Justice Clarence Thomas' ongoing conflicts of interest makes evident, Supreme Court justices should be subject to an enforceable and binding code of ethics — like all other federal judges — to maintain the credibility of the institution, says Erica Salmon Byrne at Ethisphere.
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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.