Residential

  • December 08, 2025

    Trump Admin Backs Exxon In Cuba Property Seizure Case

    The Trump administration is pressing the U.S. Supreme Court to rule in favor of Exxon Mobil Corp. and find that a federal law allowing U.S. victims of property seizures by the Cuban government to seek damages from entities that subsequently used the property abrogates the sovereign immunity of Cuban agencies and instrumentalities.

  • December 08, 2025

    The Real Estate Matters Keeping GCs Up At Night

    As the general counsel of real estate companies cope with fast-changing market dynamics and consider how to implement new technology, outside counsel can play an important role in helping them make better decisions.

  • December 08, 2025

    One Sotheby's Agent Tells Jurors $3.7M Theft Was Not Fraud

    A former One Sotheby's International Realty agent accused of stealing $3.7 million in proceeds from the sale of a Miami-area beachfront luxury condo told jurors Monday that while there may have been wrongdoing on his part, there was no fraud.

  • December 08, 2025

    RealPage Asks To Block NY Rental Pricing Software Law

    Property management software company RealPage is asking for a preliminary injunction to block enforcement of a New York law that prohibits building owners from using software to set residential rental rates while its case challenging the statute plays out.

  • December 08, 2025

    Independence Realty's General Counsel Will Retire In March

    Independence Realty Trust Inc.'s general counsel will retire March 31 and is expected "to provide an orderly transition of her duties through her retirement date," the real estate investment trust announced Monday in a regulatory filing.

  • December 08, 2025

    Madison Realty Capital Lands $285M Brooklyn Multifamily Refi

    Real estate private equity firm Madison Realty Capital has secured $285 million in refinancing for the recently completed Greenpoint Central multifamily property in Brooklyn, broker Walker & Dunlop announced in a Monday news release.

  • December 05, 2025

    Feds Wrap Up FARA Case Against Ex-NY Gov. Aide Linda Sun

    Brooklyn federal prosecutors on Friday rested their case against a former top aide to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, after about three weeks of trial over alleged violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and other charges.

  • December 05, 2025

    7th Circ. Won't Revive Ex-Tenant's Palestinian Flag Bias Suit

    The Seventh Circuit has backed the dismissal of a Palestinian American's Fair Housing Act lawsuit that accused an apartment building's owner and operator of wrongfully evicting her after she refused to remove a Palestinian flag outside her apartment window.

  • December 05, 2025

    Manufactured Housing Cos. Ditch Price-Fixing Claims

    An Illinois federal judge has tossed a proposed price-fixing class action against multiple manufactured housing companies and a data company, ruling the proposed class failed to show the businesses conspired to jack up rent prices.

  • December 05, 2025

    Mass. IOLTA Panel Says It's Owed Slice Of Residual Funds

    A Massachusetts panel that oversees Interest on Lawyers' Trust Accounts asked the state's highest court Friday to at least partially unwind a $4 million class action settlement, saying a lower court didn't give it a chance to argue for a portion of what it says are "significant" residual funds.

  • December 04, 2025

    Dems Press CFPB's Vought On Mortgage Rate Shutdown Plan

    Senate Democrats are demanding clarity on the fate of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's benchmark mortgage-rate work if the Trump administration lets the agency go dark, warning of imminent potential chaos for the $13 trillion mortgage market.

  • December 04, 2025

    Miami Resident Claims City Extorts Land For Permits

    A Miami resident told a Florida state court that the city is subverting the eminent domain process by unconstitutionally extorting land from homeowners in exchange for building permits.

  • December 04, 2025

    Zillow's Climate Score Removal Sparks Insurance Concerns

    Zillow's recent decision to reduce the visibility of a climate-risk feature attached to its real estate listings highlights a need to provide consumers with more information on a key driver of insurance costs, given differences in climate-risk modeling practices.

  • December 04, 2025

    OFAC Fines Real Estate Firm $7M Over Sanctions Violations

    The Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control fined a New York property management company more than $7 million for allegedly violating Russian sanctions by receiving payments on behalf of a company owned by a sanctioned Russian oligarch.

  • December 04, 2025

    Gov't Watchdog To Probe FHFA Mortgage Fraud Referrals

    The Government Accountability Office will review whether Federal Housing Finance Agency Director William Pulte weaponized mortgage fraud investigations against the president's perceived political opponents and flouted the agency's typical investigation process.

  • December 04, 2025

    Judge OKs Plan Disclosures For AmeriFirst In Ch. 11

    A Delaware bankruptcy judge agreed Thursday to grant conditional approval for bankruptcy mortgage servicer AmeriFirst's disclosure statement outlining its Chapter 11 plan, finding the objections raised by the U.S. Trustee's Office are best reserved for the plan confirmation hearing.

  • December 04, 2025

    Mortgage Insurer Inks $650K Deal To End ERISA Suit

    A mortgage insurance company has agreed to pay $650,000 to close a worker's proposed class action filed in North Carolina federal court claiming its mismanagement of an employee retirement profit sharing plan caused a $1.3 million loss.

  • December 04, 2025

    Morgan Stanley, MorningStar Close $305M Housing Deal

    Morgan Stanley Investment Management and MorningStar Senior Living, with Morgan Stanley Real Estate Investing's managed funds, acquired a 463-unit MorningStar senior housing portfolio located near Denver for $305 million from Kayne Anderson Real Estate, the two companies announced Dec. 4.

  • December 04, 2025

    Yardi Reports Widespread US Rent Decline In November

    Rental industry analyst Yardi Matrix reports that multifamily rents and demand each sagged for the fourth straight month in November, a broad trend that visited cities both with and without new supply coming to market.

  • December 04, 2025

    NAR Says Realtor Rule Changes Not Relevant To Antitrust Suit

    The National Association of Realtors and local Realtor groups at the center of a proposed class action have urged a Michigan federal court not to allow real estate brokers and agents to bring recent NAR handbook changes before the court in their antitrust suit.

  • December 04, 2025

    Over 2 Dozen Countries Commit To Property Tax Transparency

    A group of 26 jurisdictions committed on Dec. 4 to adopting a framework developed by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development to facilitate the exchange of real estate information among tax authorities.

  • December 03, 2025

    Chats Show Ex-NY Gov Aide Was Tight With Chinese Officials

    Jurors weighing the fate of a former aide to two New York governors have seen a raft of chats and other documents over several days that the feds say support their case alleging she violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act, including communications that seem to suggest she had a close working relationship with several Chinese government officials.

  • December 03, 2025

    Cities, Groups Fight Changes To HUD Homeless Housing Grant

    The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development unlawfully introduced "drastic" changes to grants under a federal program to combat homelessness, a coalition of local governments and homelessness service providers has alleged in a suit filed in Rhode Island federal court.

  • December 03, 2025

    Monitor Will Stay In Place In $1B Broad Street Fraud Case

    A private equity firm accused by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of defrauding investors in a $1 billion fund lost its bid Wednesday to discharge the court-appointed monitor overseeing its books when a Florida federal judge rejected arguments that the monitor was acting in bad faith.

  • December 03, 2025

    UMB Bank Gets Partial Win In $80M Hard Rock Hotel Dispute

    UMB Bank NA has been granted wins on some of its claims in a suit regarding a failed $80 million Hard Rock Hotel development project, with a Kansas federal court ruling that claims it did not properly reimburse the project developer's costs have already been decided in Minnesota court.

Expert Analysis

  • NC Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q3

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    There were several impactful changes to the financial services landscape in North Carolina in the third quarter of the year, including statutory updates, enforcement developments from Office of the Commissioner of Banks, and notable mergers, acquisitions and branch expansions, say attorneys at Moore & Van Allen.

  • Looking Beyond Property Damages For Wildfire Survivors

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    Personal injury attorneys seeking compensation for victims of wildfires like those in Los Angeles County must carefully apply a multidisciplinary approach that looks beyond obvious property loss to the full spectrum of damages, considering factors like emotional distress, disruption of community and the psychological toll of displacement, says Farid Yaghoubtil at Downtown L.A. Law Group.

  • Calif. Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q3

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    The third quarter of 2025 brought legislative changes to state money transmission certification requirements and securities law obligations, as well as high-profile accounting and anti-money laundering compliance enforcement actions by the Department of Financial Protection and Innovation, say attorneys at Ropes & Gray.

  • A Mortgage Lender's Guide To State Licensing Overhaul

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    Recent changes to the Conference of State Bank Supervisors' Nationwide Mortgage Licensing System require careful attention and planning from mortgage lenders, including tweaks to remote work designations and individual disclosure questions, says Allison Schilz at Mitchell Sandler.

  • Montana Federal Ruling Takes Broad View Of 'Related Claims'

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    A Montana federal court recently took a broad view of related claims, ruling that claims brought by different plaintiffs in different states alleging different legal theories were nevertheless under a directors and officers insurance policy, illustrating the range of interpretations courts may give these clauses, say attorneys at Hunton.

  • Expect DOJ To Repeat 4 Themes From 2024's FCPA Trials

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    As two upcoming Foreign Corrupt Practice Act trials approach, defense counsel should anticipate the U.S. Department of Justice to revive several of the same themes prosecutors leaned on in trials last year to motivate jurors to convict, and build counternarratives to neutralize these arguments, says James Koukios at MoFo.

  • As Student Loan Outlook Dims, What Happens To The Banks?

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    While much of the news around the student loan crisis focuses on the direct impact on young Americans' decreasing credit scores, the fate of the banks themselves — and the effect on banking policy — has been largely left out of the narrative, says Madeline Thieschafer at Fredrikson & Byron.

  • 5 Real Estate Takeaways From Trump's Sweeping Tax Law

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    Changes to the Internal Revenue Code included in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act will have a range of effects on real estate sponsors, investors and real estate investment trusts — from more compliance flexibility around taxable REIT subsidiary limits to new considerations raised by a key retaliatory tax provision that was left out, say attorneys at DLA Piper.

  • How Prohibiting Trigger Leads May Affect Mortgage Marketing

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    Recent amendments to the Fair Credit Reporting Act prohibiting the sale of trigger leads mark a significant shift in the regulatory landscape for mortgage lenders, third-party lead generators and their legal counsel, who should reevaluate lead generation strategies and compliance protocols, say Joel Herberman, Rob Robilliard and Leah Dempsey at Brownstein Hyatt.

  • Considerations For Cos. Amid Wave Of CFPB Vacatur Bids

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    As some entities look to vacate prior voluntary agreements with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, there are several considerations companies should take into account before seeking to vacate their settlements in the current legal and regulatory environment, says Jasmine Jean-Louis at Goodwin.

  • Rebutting Price Impact In Securities Class Actions

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    Defendants litigating securities cases historically faced long odds in defeating class certification, but that paradigm has recently begun to shift, with recent cases ushering in a more searching analysis of price impact and changing the evidence courts can consider at the class certification stage, say attorneys at Katten.

  • NY Laundering Ruling Leans On Jurisdictional Fundamentals

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    A New York appeals court’s recent dismissal of Zhakiyanov v. Ogai, a civil money laundering dispute between Kazakh citizens involving New York real estate, points toward limitations on the jurisdictional reach of state courts and suggests that similar claims will be subject to a searching forum analysis, say attorneys at Curtis Mallet-Prevost.

  • The Consequences Of OCC's Pivot On Disparate Impact

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    The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency's recent move to stop scrutinizing facially neutral lending policies that disproportionately affect a protected group reflects the administration's ongoing shift in assessing discrimination, though this change may not be enough to dissuade claims by states or private plaintiffs, says Travis Nelson at Polsinelli.