Residential

  • September 26, 2025

    SEC Eyes Tweaking RMBS Rules To Revive Dormant Market

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission put out a call for public comments on improving its rules over residential mortgage-backed securities, noting that there have been no such public offerings in more than a decade and questioning whether the agency's requirements may be partially to blame.

  • September 26, 2025

    Court Erases $187M Hurricane Damage Appraisal Award

    A Florida federal court invalidated a $187 million appraisal award that a group of homeowners associations won against their insurers over damage related to Hurricane Sally in 2020, finding that the group's chosen appraiser "never stated the 'amount of loss'" to the property.

  • September 26, 2025

    $33M NJ Mansion Wasn't Chinese Exile's, Holding Co. Says

    A holding company that nominally owns a $33 million New Jersey mansion has asked a Connecticut federal judge to flip a bankruptcy finding that the company was equitably owned by Chinese exile Miles Guo and functioned as his alter ego, arguing the property was actually paid for by Guo's fraud victims.

  • September 26, 2025

    Mortgage Insurer Wants To Settle 401(k) Mismanagement Suit

    A mortgage insurance company has agreed to settle a proposed Employee Retirement Income Security Act class action filed by a former employee who accused the insurer in North Carolina federal court of mismanaging a 401(k) plan.

  • September 26, 2025

    NYCHA Lands $706M Financing For Repairs At 18 Towers

    New York City's Housing Authority announced that it has closed on a combined $705.7 million in financing for renovations for 18 Manhattan and Brooklyn buildings, funding unlocked via the properties' conversion to Section 8 units under a federal program.

  • September 26, 2025

    Mass. Tax Board Cuts $1M Home Value To Sale Price

    A Massachusetts home valued at $1 million by a county assessor should have the value lowered to the price the home sold for, the state Appellate Tax Board ruled. 

  • September 26, 2025

    11th Circ. Told $33M Easement Deduction Improperly Cut

    The U.S. Tax Court ignored evidence of land values that the IRS had failed to rebut — or even backed — when it drastically reduced a partnership's $33 million tax deduction for donating a Georgia conservation easement, the partnership told the Eleventh Circuit.

  • September 26, 2025

    Fried Frank Helping With Extell's Upsized Manhattan Tower

    Extell Development is seeking to build a much taller tower on Madison Avenue in Manhattan than it had previously envisioned in a project guided by Fried Frank, according to recent filings in New York.

  • September 26, 2025

    Mass. Board Won't Lower Boston Home's Tax Value

    A Boston homeowner showed insufficient evidence to lower her property's assessed value, the Massachusetts Appellate Tax Board said, dismissing her claim that the assessment had increased at a higher rate than those of neighboring properties.

  • September 25, 2025

    Roundup: Insurance Highlights At Climate Week NYC 2025

    Politicians and business leaders at this year’s Climate Week in New York City are emphasizing that climate change is posing huge challenges for people struggling with high insurance premiums, but opportunity still exists for the industry in a green transition. Here, Law360 looks at just a few of the happenings this year at the weeklong conference.

  • September 25, 2025

    Walker & Dunlop Secures $156M Refi For Multifamily Portfolio

    Walker & Dunlop Inc. lined up five deals that provided more than $156 million of refinancing for a four-property, 1,351-unit multifamily portfolio located in the Southeastern part of the U.S. and Texas, the commercial real estate finance and advisory services firm announced.

  • September 25, 2025

    Housing Authority Targets Ex-Chief's Home In $3.1M Suit

    A Connecticut municipal housing authority that is embroiled in litigation with its former executive director has asked a state court judge to make him pledge his Middlebury home to satisfy a potential multimillion-dollar judgment against him.

  • September 25, 2025

    Property Manager Didn't Pay For Meal Break Work, Suit Claims

    Leasing agents and maintenance technicians, in a proposed collective and class action filed on Thursday, have accused a property management company of making them work during unpaid meal breaks, while not keeping track of this time and refusing to pay overtime. 

  • September 25, 2025

    Calif. City Asks Justices To Reboot Housing Law Challenge

    The city of Huntington Beach, California, has urged the U.S. Supreme Court to revive its claims challenging state laws that require the city to build enough housing to keep up with population growth, arguing an appeals panel wrongly found the city can't bring a federal constitutional challenge against its parent state.

  • September 25, 2025

    Holland & Knight Launches Real Estate Dispute Team

    Holland & Knight LLP announced it has formed a new real estate disputes and advocacy team, noting the group will provide counsel to clients on lease litigation matters, complex contract claims and other commercial property disputes.

  • September 24, 2025

    Tower Developer Linked To Menendez Ally Wants Suit Tossed

    The developer behind a disputed high-rise project — once led by a businessman convicted in the bribery scheme involving former U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez — is asking a New Jersey judge to dismiss a lawsuit brought by a neighboring municipality, arguing the case is incurably flawed.

  • September 24, 2025

    NY AG Scores 1st Conviction Under Revised Home Equity Law

    A former real estate agent in Rockland County, New York, has pled guilty to forgery and become the first person criminally convicted under updates to a state law protecting homeowners whose properties are in foreclosure, New York Attorney General Letitia James announced on Wednesday.

  • September 24, 2025

    Walker & Dunlop Lines Up $110M Multifamily Refi Loans

    Walker & Dunlop Inc. lined up floating-rate, interest-only bridge loans worth $110 million to refinance two "luxury, multifamily garden-style" apartment complexes in Durham, North Carolina, and Windsor, Colorado, the commercial real estate finance and advisory firm announced Wednesday.

  • September 24, 2025

    Minn. Court Says Landlords Waive Evictions By Taking Rent

    The Minnesota Supreme Court said Wednesday that landlords in the state can't evict public or private housing tenants for breaching their leases if the landlords knew about the specific lease violations when they accepted the tenants' rent payments, ruling against a Minneapolis property owner that had filed an eviction suit against a tenant.

  • September 24, 2025

    Ill. Judge Sends $7.6M DOJ Deal Coverage Dispute To Virginia

    A consulting firm must litigate its suit seeking coverage for a $7.6 million settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice in Virginia, where it is based, an Illinois federal court ruled, finding that Virginia is the more convenient forum and the better place to apply state law.

  • September 24, 2025

    Md. County Backs Landowners In 4th Circ. Power Line Dispute

    A county board of commissioners in Maryland told the Fourth Circuit that a Public Service Energy Group unit trying to build a 67-mile transmission line has no right to conduct testing on private landowners' properties, saying a lower court erred in granting the company access.

  • September 24, 2025

    NYC Housing Bribe Case Winding Down As Another Trial Set

    A Manhattan federal judge on Wednesday teed up a trial for a Bronx assistant public housing superintendent accused of taking $14,000 in bribes, as an anti-corruption sweep targeting 70 workers at the New York City Housing Authority inched toward an end.

  • September 24, 2025

    AvalonBay Can't Duck DC's RealPage Claims

    A District of Columbia Superior Court judge has rejected landlord AvalonBay Communities Inc.'s bid to escape D.C.'s rent-fixing antitrust suit against property management software company RealPage Inc., AvalonBay and several landlords.

  • September 24, 2025

    Marsh US Real Estate Leader On Insurance Landscape

    Commercial real estate companies, squeezed by higher interest rates in recent years, have also seen a dramatic increase in insurance premiums. Duncan C. Ellis, who leads Marsh's U.S. and Canada real estate and hospitality practice, spoke to Law360 Real Estate Authority about what's behind the trends in commercial real estate insurance.

  • September 24, 2025

    Lender Must Face Class Claims It Ignored 'Do Not Call' Asks

    A mortgage lender must face class allegations that it called people without their consent to market its loan products and continued to call people who asked it to stop, a Michigan federal judge has ruled, rejecting the lender's arguments that the proposed class is too vague.

Expert Analysis

  • Do Not Overstate Fla. Condo Termination Ruling's Impact

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    A close look at the unique language at issue in Avila v. Biscayne, in which a Florida appellate court deemed a condo termination to be invalid, shows that the case is unlikely to significantly affect other potential terminations, say Barry Lapides and Edward Baker at Berger Singerman.

  • Takeaways From FDIC's Spring Supervisory Highlights

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    The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s spring 2024 consumer compliance supervisory report found that relatively few institutions had significant consumer compliance issues last year, but the common thread among those that did were inadequacies or failures in disclosures to consumers, says Matthew Hanaghan at Nutter.

  • What Calif. Eviction Ruling Means For Defaulting Borrowers

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    A California appellate court's recent decision in Homeward Opportunities v. Taptelis found that a defaulting borrower could not delay foreclosure with an improperly served notice of pendency of action, but leaves open a possibility for borrowers to delay eviction proceedings merely by filing lawsuits, say Anne Beehler and Krystal Anderson at Holland & Knight.

  • How 3D Printing And Prefab Are Changing Construction

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    The growing popularity of trends like 3D printing technology and prefabrication in the construction industry have positive ramifications ranging from reducing risks at project sites to streamlining construction schedules, say Josephine Bahn and Jeffery Mullen at Cozen O'Connor.

  • Wave Of Final Rules Reflects Race Against CRA Deadline

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    The flurry of final rules now leaping off the Federal Register press — some of which will affect entire industries and millions of Americans — shows President Joe Biden's determination to protect his regulatory legacy from reversal by the next Congress, given the impending statutory look-back period under the Congressional Review Act, say attorneys at Jenner & Block.

  • A Deep Dive Into High Court's Permit Fee Ruling

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    David Robinson and Daniel Golub at Holland & Knight explore the U.S. Supreme Court's recent ruling that a local traffic impact fee charged to a California property owner may be a Fifth Amendment taking — and where it leaves localities and real estate developers.

  • The Case For Overturning Florida Foreclosure Ruling

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    A Florida appellate court's recent decision in Desbrunes v. U.S. Bank National Association will potentially put foreclosure cases across the state in jeopardy, and unless it is reconsidered, foreclosing plaintiffs will need to choose between frustrating and uncertain options in the new legal landscape, say Sara Accardi and Paige Knight at Bradley.

  • Bracing For The CFPB's War On Mortgage Fees

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    As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau homes in on the legality of certain residential mortgage fees, the industry should consult the bureau's steady stream of consumer lending guidance for hints on its priorities, say Nanci Weissgold and Melissa Malpass at Alston & Bird.

  • DOJ Consent Orders Chart Road Map For Lending Compliance

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    Two recent consent orders issued by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of its efforts to fight mortgage lending discrimination highlight issues that pose fair lending compliance risks, and should be carefully studied by banks to avoid enforcement actions, says Memrie Fortenberry at Jones Walker.

  • Reverse Veil-Piercing Ruling Will Help Judgment Creditors

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    A New York federal court’s recent decision in Citibank v. Aralpa Holdings, finding two corporate entities liable for a judgment issued against a Mexican businessman, shows the value of reverse veil piercing as a remedy for judgment creditors to go after sophisticated debtors who squirrel away assets, says Gabe Bluestone at Omni Bridgeway.

  • Calif. Housing Overhaul May Increase Pressure On Landlords

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    Two recently enacted California laws signal new protections and legal benefits for tenants, but also elevate landlords' financial exposure at a time when they are already facing multiple other hardships, says Laya Dogmetchi at Much Shelist.

  • New Proposal Signals Sharper Enforcement Focus At CFIUS

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    Last week's proposed rule aimed at broadening the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States' enforcement authority over foreign investments and increasing penalties for violations signals that CFIUS intends to continue expanding its aggressive monitoring of national security issues, say attorneys at Kirkland.

  • Climate Disclosure Mandates Demand A Big-Picture Approach

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    As carbon emissions disclosure requirements from the European Union, California and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission take effect, the best practice for companies is not targeted compliance with a given reporting regime, but rather a comprehensive approach to systems assessment and management, says David Smith at Manatt.