By Adam Leitman Bailey and Carly Greenberg Today’s bank robbers rarely use a mask and gun. The crimes are usually completed at a real estate transaction’s closing table. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation, lenders incurred more than $1 billion in mortgage losses in 2005 as a result of fraud.1 During this same time Full Article…
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Split Between Departments Muddies Subrogation Doctrine, New York Law Journal
By Adam Leitman Bailey and Dov Treiman In an era when this nation’s economic stability depends, in part, on stable and unfettered real estate transfers, equitable subrogation provides a solution to some of the cracks in the system. However, as evidenced by a split between two departments of the Appellate Division, these cracks need some Full Article…
HETPA Contains Land Mines For Unwary Attorneys, Buyers, New York Law Journal
By Adam Leitman Bailey and Dov Treiman In February of 2007 the Home Equity Theft Prevention Act (HETPA) passed the New York State Legislature, attempting to stop scam artists from stealing or tapping the equity of victims’ homes. HETPA had two principal areas of concern: the substance of transactions involving persons in distressed circumstances selling Full Article…
Title Insurance Complexities in Tax Foreclosure Purchases, Mortgage Banking Magazine
By Adam Leitman Bailey and Dov Treiman For the past four years, nearly every title company providing title insurance in the United States of America has been scrambling to interpret federal and state court decisions setting the rules for determining when a tax foreclosure sale will be safe from judicial knockouts. When the U.S. Supreme Full Article…
The Warrant of Habitability: An Unexpected Hazard in Home Mortgage Foreclosure, Real Estate Law and Industry Report
By Adam Leitman Bailey and Dov Treiman Most attorneys and nearly all educated tenants in this State are aware of the existence of the warranty of habitability. Few may know that it is statutory in basis, fewer care that it contradicts the common law, but most would be surprised by the types of occupancy to Full Article…
The Warranty of Habitability, an Unexpected Hazard in Foreclosure, New York Housing Journal
By Adam Leitman Bailey and Dov Treiman Most owners and nearly all educated tenants in this state are aware of the existence of the warranty of habitability. Few may know that it is statutory in basis, fewer care that it contradicts he common law, but most would be surprised by the types of occupancy to Full Article…
Q & A: When a Co-op Files for Bankruptcy, The New York Times
By Leonard Ritz Q. The finances of our co-op building are in poor shape, and we are worried the co-op corporation may end up in bankruptcy. If this occurs, what happens to the shareholders, most of whom still have outstanding mortgages?
The Brewing MERS Crisis: Everyone Loses, New York Law Journal
By Adam Leitman Bailey and Dov Treiman In Homer’s Odyssey, the protagonist, Odysseus, is called upon to sail his crew through the Straits of Messina, passing between two legendary monsters, Scylla and Charybdis. To avoid one, the only option was to approach the other, risking a horrible death in either instance. Odysseus was at times Full Article…