By Adam Leitman Bailey At the start of this new millennium, the most effective means to rob a bank no longer includes the use of a gun. The real estate closing table has replaced the gun and mask as the most favored and effective tool of theft from financial institutions. As the New York Times Full Article…
The Warranty of Habitability: An Unexpected Hazard in Home Mortgage Foreclosure
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…
Recording: The Boundaries of the Whole World
By Adam Leitman Bailey, Dov Treiman and Jackie Halpern Weinstein Basic to any lawyer’s understanding of the recording statutes,1 is the concept that the proper recording of an instrument in recordable form places “the whole world” on notice of the interest claimed in the recorded instrument.2 In a July 2011 Supreme Court decision from Brooklyn, Full Article…
Despite ‘Jones,’ Ambiguities In Title Chain Can Be Cured
By Adam Leitman Bailey and Dov Treiman When the Supreme Court decided Jones v. Flowers,1 it exacerbated a nagging problem for the title insurance industry – the necessity to do constitutional analysis when examining chains of title. With the current state of the economy, tax foreclosures are increasing. Thus, more properties have these ambiguities in Full Article…
The Brewing MERS Crisis: Everyone Loses
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…
Door Partly Closes for Buyer’s Brokers Seeking Fee
By Adam Leitman Bailey and Jessica D. Scherer As a result of the Statute of Fraud’s brokerage commission exception, real estate owners should not engage or utilize the services of a real estate broker or enter into any transaction involving a real estate agent without a written agreement declaring that a commission shall only be Full Article…
Power-of-Attorney Changes Scramble Property Transfers, New York Law Journal
By Adam Leitman Bailey and Dov Treiman As of Sept. 1, New York has abolished its old easy single-sheet statutory power of attorney form (POA) and replaced it with a tremendously complicated new law1 describing a highly complex new document with a misleadingly named optional rider.2 The 1948 original form and its successors were designed Full Article…
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…
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