Residential
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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 in a regulatory filing.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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December 03, 2025
Landlord Can't Nix $4M Jury Award Over Mugging, Shooting
A Florida appeals panel on Wednesday affirmed a $4 million judgment in favor of a renter who alleged that his landlord failed to protect him from a mugging in which he was shot four times, finding that the issue of whether the incident was foreseeable was properly put in front of a jury.
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December 03, 2025
Okla. Cos. Hit Simon Property Group With Antitrust Suit
A group of Oklahoma-based companies accused retail-focused real estate investment trust Simon Property Group Inc. of waging "an anticompetitive campaign" to take down their competing mixed-use project in Oklahoma City.
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December 03, 2025
K&L Gates Deepens Its CMBS Servicer Attorney Bench
K&L Gates LLP announced Wednesday that it has brought on two experienced real estate finance attorneys whose practices focus on advising commercial mortgage-backed securities servicers.
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December 03, 2025
Judge Halts Suit Over Texas Law Blocking Foreign Land Buys
A Texas federal judge sided with Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in pausing a lawsuit from three Chinese nationals pending a Fifth Circuit decision in a parallel challenge to a policy preventing citizens of China, North Korea, Iran and Russia from buying land in the state.
Expert Analysis
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Recent Securities Cases Highlight Risks In AI Disclosures
Increasing public disclosure about the use and risks of artificial intelligence, and related litigation asserting that such disclosures are false or misleading, suggest that issuers need to exercise great care with respect to how they describe the benefits of AI, say Richard Zelichov and Danny Tobey at DLA Piper.
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Consider Best Legal Practices For Commissioning Public Art
Commissioning public art for real estate projects can provide many benefits to real estate developers and the public, but it's important to understand the unique legal and contracting aspects of the process to ensure that projects are completed on time and on budget, says Sarah Conley Odenkirk at ArtConverge.
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Proposed Mortgage Assistance Rule: Tips For Servicers
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau's recent proposal to alter Regulation X mortgage servicing procedures to broadly construe requests for assistance, and stay foreclosure proceedings during loss mitigation review, will, if finalized, require mortgage servicers to make notable procedural changes to comply, says Louis Manetti at Locke Lord.
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How Multifamily Property Owners Can Plan For The EV Future
As the electric vehicle market expands, and federal and state incentives and mandates intended to promote EV use come into effect, owners and operators of multifamily residential properties should be prepared to meet the growing demand for onsite EV charging infrastructure, say Sydney Tucker and Andreas Wokutch at Frost Brown.
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Fla. Insurer-Breach Cases Split On Unrepaired Property Issue
A Florida appellate court's recent decision in Universal v. Qureshi is directly at odds with a 2020 decision from another Florida appellate court, and raises important questions for policyholders and insurers about the proper measure of damages in breach claims involving unrepaired property, say Andrea DeField and Yaniel Abreu at Hunton.
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Colorado Banking Brief: All The Notable Legal Updates In Q3
In the third quarter of 2024, Colorado's banking and financial services sector faced both regulatory updates and changes to state law due to recent federal court decisions — with consequences for local governments, mortgage lenders, state-chartered trust companies and federally chartered lenders serving Colorado consumers, says Sarah Auchterlonie at Brownstein Hyatt.
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In The CFPB Playbook: No Lazy, Hazy Days Of Summer
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is headed for a brisk fall season, on the heels of a heated summer, which included the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling that the CFPB funding structure is constitutional, and in advance of the November election, says Eamonn Moran at Holland & Knight.
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Basel Endgame Rules: A Change Is Coming
The Federal Reserve Board's recently announced recalibration of the Basel endgame proposal begins a critical chapter in the evolution of not only the safety and soundness of U.S. banks, but also of banks' abilities to lend and support American businesses and consumers, say attorneys at Davis Wright.
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Reassessing Lease Provisions To Account For ESG Initiatives
As companies seek to build ESG considerations into their businesses, it's crucial to understand how such initiatives can quickly become significant enough to compel reassessment of lease agreement provisions, and how best to modify leases accordingly, say Julian Freeman and Gabe Pitassi at Cox Castle.
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Avoid Getting Burned By Agencies' Solar Financing Spotlight
Recently coordinated reports and advisories from the U.S. Department of the Treasury, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and the Federal Trade Commission maximize the spotlight on the consumer solar financing market and highlight pitfalls for lenders to avoid in this burgeoning field, says Mercedes Tunstall at Cadwalader.
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Assessing Algorithmic Versus Generative AI Pricing Tools
A comparison of traditional algorithmic pricing models and those powered by generative artificial intelligence can help regulators and practitioners weigh the pros and cons of relying on large language models to price products or services, say Maxime Cohen at McGill University, and Tim Spittle and Jimmy Royer at Analysis Group.
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Navigating A Potpourri Of Possible Transparency Act Pitfalls
Despite the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network's continued release of guidance for complying with the Corporate Transparency Act, its interpretation remains in flux, making it important for companies to understand potentially problematic areas of ambiguity in the practical application of the law, say attorneys at Sidley.
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DOJ Must Overcome Hurdles In RealPage Antitrust Case
The U.S. Department of Justice's recent claims that RealPage's pricing software violates the Sherman Act mark a creative, and apparently contradictory, shift in the agency's approach to algorithmic price-fixing that will face several key challenges, say attorneys at Clifford Chance.