Supposedly to be in line with recent judicial case law, the New York State Department of Taxation and Finance has reversed its previous position and now declares that the sale of Title Abstracts are subject to sales tax in New York. This new ruling will take effect September 1, 2010. The memorandum issued by the…
So Congress finally got its act together and passed a bill extending the closing deadline for claiming the federal home buyer tax credit for real estate purchases until September 30, 2010. The extension will be retroactive so that the thousands of buyers and sellers who have been mired down by short sales or the lengthy…
New York is a judicial foreclosure state and the process can take over a year to proceed from Summons & Complaint through judgment and then auction. A homeowner has a right to redeem up and until auction, but unlike many states, there is no right of redemption after Sale (but see Bill proposing to allow…
Having recently issued a decision canceling an Indymac mortgage lien in another foreclosure action, Judge Spinner turns his attention to the outrageous actions of Wells Fargo and holds the mortgage behemoth liable for trespass, resulting in $155,092.00 judgment, in Wells Fargo v. Tyson. At the outset, the court pointed out that the Plaintiff sent a…
So I have been playing around with a new feature added to Property Shark: Deep Owner Search. You can type in a person’s name, a corporation name or an address and see what properties are associated with that information. From there, you can also search that person’s associates and so forth. Since I have practiced…
On Friday, January 15, 2010, HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan issued a press release, as part of HUD’s Neighborhood Stabilization initiative, temporarily waiving FHA’s 90 Day Seasoning Rule. Amazingly, HUD is cognizant that the seasoning guideline is having a negative impact on alleviating the problem of abandoned and blighted homes: “In today’s market, FHA research finds…
In our current distressed market, there are a few avenues available to distressed, underwater homeowners: loan modification, Deed-In-Lieu, short sale or foreclosure. For those that lack the necessary income to qualify for a loan modification, a short sale is often the best choice. If the property is the homeowner’s principal residence, the debt forgiven in…
