Residential

  • August 26, 2025

    Buchalter Adds Ex-Carlton Fields Attys To LA Office

    Buchalter has hired two former Carlton Fields attorneys as shareholders for its corporate team in Los Angeles, and one of the announced hires is returning to the firm after almost 30 years.

  • August 25, 2025

    Nationstar Loan Payoff Statement Fees OK'd By Wash. Judge

    A Washington federal judge has sided with Nationstar in a proposed class action alleging illegal fees, recognizing the home loan servicer is allowed to charge a "reasonable fee" for expedited delivery of a loan payoff statement upon request.

  • August 25, 2025

    Washington Judge OKs Tenant Class Challenging Lease Terms

    A Washington federal judge certified a class of Washington tenants accusing a landlord for more than 700 U.S. residential properties of having lease provisions, such as service fees, that violate state law.

  • August 25, 2025

    Warner Bros. Denies 'Ugly House' Infringement At Del. Trial

    An attorney for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. told a Delaware federal judge on Monday its popular "Ugliest House in America" show had "nothing to do" with HomeVestors of America Inc.'s "Ugly House" competition, kicking off an infringement trial where the latter company is seeking millions in disgorgement.

  • August 25, 2025

    Trump Fires Fed's Lisa Cook Over Mortgage Fraud Allegation

    President Donald Trump on Monday evening fired Federal Reserve Gov. Lisa Cook over his administration's allegation that she committed mortgage fraud, thrusting the White House into uncharted territory in its campaign to exert control over the central bank. 

  • August 25, 2025

    Trustee For NJ House Flipper Cos. Seeks OK For Oct. Auction

    The Chapter 11 trustee for companies tied to celebrity house flippers accused of a Ponzi-like scheme Monday asked a New Jersey bankruptcy judge to approve procedures for the sale of the companies' assets.

  • August 25, 2025

    Mich. Judge Backs 125% Recovery In Tax Foreclosure Deal

    A Michigan federal judge has given the initial approval to a settlement between a proposed class of former property owners and two counties over allegations that the counties unlawfully kept surplus proceeds from the sales of their tax-foreclosed properties, a deal similar to one the same judge OK'd last week.

  • August 25, 2025

    Jury Awards Ex-Housing Worker $2.3M In Hostile Workplace Suit

    A federal jury on Monday awarded a former homeownership coordinator at the public housing authority in Charlotte, North Carolina, more than $2 million in damages in her suit claiming she was subject to a hostile work environment after she reported concerns that the agency was discriminating against elderly and disabled veterans and other housing applicants.

  • August 25, 2025

    Vornado To Buy NYC Office Tower, Scraps Residential Plan

    Vornado Realty Trust will pay $218 million to acquire and redevelop a 36-story office condominium into a new office property, canceling the seller's previous plan to convert the property into a residential building, the real estate investment trust announced Monday.

  • August 25, 2025

    NJ Court Upholds Most Claims In Judicial Privacy Suits

    Lawsuits filed by a data privacy group representing judges, prosecutors and law enforcement officials may continue against companies and groups that published their home addresses and unlisted phone numbers after a New Jersey federal judge on Monday denied the defendants' motions to dismiss.

  • August 25, 2025

    Construction Supplies Co. Hires Ex-Fannie Mae Atty As GC

    White Cap has hired a former Fannie Mae deputy general counsel as its new general counsel in its Atlanta headquarters, the construction supplies and safety products company announced Monday.

  • August 25, 2025

    Texas Bill Would OK Low-Population Voter-Approval Tax Rates

    The Texas voter-approval property tax rate, the maximum rate a local government can adopt without voter approval, would be reduced for smaller taxing authorities under a bill passed in the state Senate and a House committee. 

  • August 22, 2025

    Housing Supervisor Rebuts Ex-Employee's Retaliation Claim

    A former supervisor at the public housing authority in Charlotte, North Carolina, facing accusations of retaliation and creating a hostile work environment told jurors Friday that she never singled out a coordinator for punishment or had any inkling of discrimination within the organization that would rise to the level of violating federal housing laws.

  • August 22, 2025

    $16M Loan Docs Looked Legit To Pullman & Comley, Letter Says

    Pullman & Comely LLC said in a 2022 letter to New York-based lender Titan Capital ID LLC that it had no knowledge of any inaccuracies or issues in a $16 million loan to the development arm of a Connecticut municipal housing authority, according to exhibits recently filed in a suit over the allegedly botched transaction.

  • August 22, 2025

    Hometap Can't Escape Mass. AG's Consumer Protection Suit

    A Massachusetts judge has rejected arguments from financial startup Hometap that existing consumer protection and debt collection laws do not apply to its "novel" home equity product, denying the company's motion to dismiss a suit brought by the state's attorney general.

  • August 22, 2025

    Michigan Judge Gives Initial OK To Tax Foreclosure Deal

    A Michigan federal judge has granted preliminary approval to a settlement that would allow former property owners to receive the surplus profits they allege county treasurers made selling their tax-delinquent properties.

  • August 21, 2025

    Appeals Court Says Dallas Must Release Discrimination Records

    A Texas appeals court ruled Thursday that the city of Dallas has to turn over records on a federal housing discrimination investigation to The Dallas Morning News, saying the information was not exempt from public disclosure.

  • August 21, 2025

    Property Owners Say SF Vacancy Tax Violates Rights

    A San Francisco levy on vacant residential units is not a tax, but a penalty, and violates property owners' constitutional rights to keep their private property from being taken for public use without just compensation, the owners told a California appellate court.

  • August 21, 2025

    Q&A: Lawmaker Takes Aim At High Property Insurance Costs

    Finding ways to make property insurance more affordable in New York is the intended outcome of a New York State Senate investigation into a crisis that's threatening to price people out of their communities, said the chair of the senate's insurance committee.

  • August 21, 2025

    AmeriFirst's Global Creditor Settlement Approved In Ch. 11

    Bankrupt mortgage lending company AmeriFirst Financial Inc. received court approval on Thursday in Delaware for a global settlement with creditors that resolves two years of legal disputes among the parties and opens a path for a Chapter 11 plan to be proposed by the debtor.

  • August 21, 2025

    NJ Court Halts Tower Linked To Menendez Co-Conspirator

    A New Jersey state court judge ordered a developer to halt construction on a mixed-use project formerly headed by a businessman convicted alongside former U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, finding the buildings' height is "clearly exceeding" plans approved in 2018.

  • August 21, 2025

    NYC Real Estate Week In Review

    HSF Kramer and Walsh & Gilad are among the law firms that picked up work on the largest New York City real estate deals that hit public records last week, with a nine-figure Manhattan trade topping the list.

  • August 21, 2025

    2 Firms Work On $810M NYC Luxury Rentals Purchase

    Two Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson LLP partners and a Gibson Dunn & Crutcher LLP partner guided the $810 million purchase and financing of a luxury rental building in Manhattan.

  • August 21, 2025

    Texas Resolution Seeks Vote On Broader Property Tax Limit

    Texas would ask voters to decide if the state should amend its constitution to apply an existing limit on the appraised value of residence homesteads to other types of property under legislation filed in the state House of Representatives.

  • August 21, 2025

    5 Firms Guide Canadian Resi REIT's $354M Sale

    Dream Residential REIT announced Aug. 21 that the Canadian company's board has reviewed and signed off on its $354 million, all-cash sale to Morgan Properties, a deal shaped by five different firms.

Expert Analysis

  • The Clock Is Ticking For Fla. Construction Defect Claims

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    Ahead of the fast-approaching July 1 deadline for filing construction defect claims in Florida, Sean Ravenel at Foran Glennon discusses how the state's new statute of repose has changed the timeline, and highlights several related issues that property owners should be aware of.

  • Wiretap Use In Cartel Probes Likely To Remain An Exception

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    Although the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division has recently signaled interest in wiretaps, the use of this technology to capture evidence of antitrust conspiracies and pursue monopolization as a criminal matter has been rare historically, and is likely to remain so, say Carsten Reichel and Will Conway at DLA Piper.

  • Debate Over CFPB Definition Of Credit Is Just Beginning

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    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.

  • A Closer Look At Feds' Proposed Banker Compensation Rule

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    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.

  • The FTC And DOJ Should Backtrack On RealPage

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    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.

  • 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.

  • 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.