Residential

  • June 04, 2025

    Lawmakers Say Recent Rocket Mortgage Deals Need Scrutiny

    A group of lawmakers is calling on antitrust enforcers to scrutinize online mortgage giant Rocket's recent deals for real estate brokerage website Redfin and mortgage company Mr. Cooper over concerns that Rocket is trying to dominate the entire homebuying process.

  • June 04, 2025

    Adviser Sued For Pouring $100M Into Failing Development

    A Florida woman sued her financial adviser in state court Tuesday, claiming he engaged in a yearslong scheme to funnel $100 million of her money into a now-bankrupt mixed-use development project and convinced her to personally guarantee more than $300 million in loans for the project.

  • June 04, 2025

    Mass. Board Upholds Home Value Despite Owner's Claims

    A Massachusetts homeowner's claims of groundwater contamination, nearby illicit activities and noxious odors fell short of the evidence needed to reduce the property's tax valuation, a state board said in an opinion released Wednesday.

  • June 04, 2025

    Ohio Justice Questions School Board's Tax Appeal Claim

    An Ohio justice criticized a school board's claim that state law allows it to appeal administrative property valuation rulings to county courts when the board doesn't own the property at issue.

  • June 04, 2025

    Nashville Mixed-Use Megaproject Wins $25M Early Loan

    Miami-based lender BridgeInvest said it has provided a $25 million loan to refinance and pay for early development costs of a site in Nashville, Tennessee, set to include an apartment tower, luxury condos and an upscale hotel.

  • June 03, 2025

    Prosecutors Take Second Stab At Convicting Dallas Developer

    Federal prosecutors started a second run at convicting a Dallas real estate developer of bribing two city council members, telling a jury during opening arguments Tuesday that the developer had a "silent partnership" with elected officials in exchange for favors.

  • June 03, 2025

    2 Texans, Firm Owe $5.3M In SEC House-Flipping Fraud Suit

    A pair of Texas men and their investment company must give the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission nearly $5.3 million to resolve claims they defrauded investors in a house-flipping scheme, misappropriating $2.9 million and misrepresenting that certain property interests would secure certain investor funds.

  • June 03, 2025

    Wash. Judge Clears The Way For Redfin Merger Vote

    A Washington federal judge on Tuesday refused to stop Redfin shareholders from voting Wednesday on a $1.75 billion merger with Rocket Cos., finding that with new disclosures made by the company, investors have enough information to make an informed decision.

  • June 03, 2025

    Conn. Real Estate Execs Say Investors Weaponized Courts

    Three executives for a real estate development firm have accused their former business partners in Connecticut Superior Court of weaponizing the courts to lodge "a multi-year, multi-forum legal assault" with "fabricated" claims.

  • June 03, 2025

    Invitation Homes Starts Lending Effort, Buys $100M In Homes

    Invitation Homes said it spent more than $100 million to acquire about 300 newly built single-family homes while it launched a developer lending program with a $32.7 million loan to a Houston homebuilder.

  • June 03, 2025

    Texas Gives Some Property Owners More Time To Pay Taxes

    Some Texas property owners whose taxing authorities allow bills to be paid in two installments will get more time to make their initial payment under legislation signed by Gov. Greg Abbott.

  • June 03, 2025

    Starwood Capital Raises $2.9B For Private Credit Funds

    Starwood Capital Group announced Tuesday that it has closed a series of private credit vehicles focused on the U.S., Europe and Australia after securing a total of $2.86 billion in capital commitments from investors.

  • June 03, 2025

    The Law360 400: A Look At The Top 100 Firms

    A rebound in client work sent the nation’s largest law firms into growth mode last year, driving a wave of hiring, mergers and strategic moves that reshaped the top tier of the Law360 400. Here's a preview of the 100 firms with the largest U.S. attorney headcounts.

  • June 03, 2025

    Text To Sanctions Trial Witness Just An 'Error,' Judge Agrees

    A Manhattan federal judge declined on Tuesday to revoke bail for a businessman accused of helping a Russian banker evade sanctions on assets worth nearly $150 million, after his lawyer said his text to a trial witness was merely a phone flub.

  • June 03, 2025

    Real Estate Lawyers On The Move

    Vedder Price, BakerHostetler and Clifford Chance are among the law firms that have made recent real estate or construction hires.

  • June 02, 2025

    Rocket Cos. Board Beats Investor's $500M Insider Trading Suit

    Delaware's Court of Chancery on Monday dismissed a derivative shareholder suit accusing Rocket Companies Inc.'s board, chairman and controlling stockholder of breaching their fiduciary duties by liquidating $500 million worth of stock allegedly based on material nonpublic information, saying the plaintiffs have failed to show a motive.

  • June 02, 2025

    Budget Bill Would Deepen Residential Solar's Woes

    A Sunnova unit's bankruptcy declaration — the latest among dozens of solar companies that have struggled to stay afloat — adds to evidence of a floundering residential solar industry, which now faces further diminishing prospects under the federal budget reconciliation bill.

  • June 02, 2025

    Landlord To Quit Pricing Software To Escape Antitrust Suit

    William C. Smith & Co. will be stepping out of litigation accusing the company of using property management platform RealPage to conspire with other landlords and fix the price of rentals in the D.C. area, after agreeing to reform its business practices and shell out over $1 million.

  • June 02, 2025

    Seattle Owner Questions Insurer's $8.5M Water Damage Denial

    A Seattle building owner urged a Washington federal court to grant it a partial early win in a coverage dispute over $8.5 million in water damage, telling the court that under state law, none of the four exclusions its insurer cited when denying coverage are applicable to the water intrusion loss.

  • June 02, 2025

    Sacramento County Inks Encampment ADA Settlement

    The county of Sacramento and a proposed class of residents with disabilities told a California federal court on Monday they have reached a tentative deal amid a suit alleging the city and county violated various state and federal laws by allowing homeless encampments to block sidewalks.

  • June 02, 2025

    Squire Patton Boggs Advises US Land Banking Partnership

    Squire Patton Boggs LLP guided Walton Global on a partnership with GoldenTree Asset Management to make investments in lot banking transactions in high-growth U.S. markets.

  • June 02, 2025

    Tax Court Cuts $21M Off Former Ga. Quarry's Deduction Value

    A donated 85-acre land plot in Georgia originally valued at nearly $22 million should have been valued around $193,000, the U.S. Tax Court found Monday, agreeing with the Internal Revenue Service.

  • June 02, 2025

    PG&E, Lenders Hit With Suit Over Solar Panel 'Scheme'

    Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. and several other companies were accused in California federal court of running a "bait-and-switch" scheme in which they saddle homeowners with hidden fees after tricking them into financing solar panel installations through zero-interest loans.

  • June 02, 2025

    Insurer Not Liable For $8.5M Florida Condo Defect Damages

    A Florida federal judge freed an insurer from paying any of the $8.5 million in damages connected to shoddy work at a Florida condo, finding there wasn't an allocation accounting for which claims were covered and which claims were not in an agreement between the condo and a contractor. 

  • June 02, 2025

    Healthcare REIT Lands $94M In Mortgages For Senior Housing

    Diversified Healthcare Trust announced Monday that it closed on two mortgages secured by six properties totaling $94.3 million, which it plans to use to pay down high interest rate senior notes due in June.

Expert Analysis

  • 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.

  • How New Rule Would Change CFIUS Enforcement Powers

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    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.

  • 2nd Circ. Eminent Domain Ruling Empowers Municipalities

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    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.