Features

Why Community Groups Can Never Win Against Developers
The 'Dreikausesn' Paradox, Other Hurdles, and Suggestions for Change Under current New York law, even the most meritorious legal challenge to property development faces insurmountable barriers once construction starts, because absent the most egregious wrongdoing, the courts will not order demolition of completed buildings, and current law makes it virtually impossible to obtain a preliminary injunction to halt construction.
Columns & Departments
Case Notes
It's Not the Money Spent, It's the Level of Conformance
Features

Structuring Strategies for Off-Balance-Sheet Treatment of Real Property Leases
The Financial Accounting Standards Board released a new set of lease accounting standards, ASC 842, which went into effect earlier this year. Most significantly, publicly traded companies are now obligated to list all leases of 12 months or longer on their balance sheets as both assets and liabilities. Large private companies will follow suit in 2020.
Features

159 MP Corp.: Grateful That Majority Rejected Dissent's Radical Approach
Further comment and analysis is warranted on the three-judge dissent, which, if adopted by the majority, would have fundamentally altered the very foundation of New York contract law.
Columns & Departments
Case Notes
Defense Based on Federal Law Cannot Confer Federal Jurisdiction
Features

A Tenant's Perspective on SNDAs: Non-Disturbance Is Not Enough
Part Two of a Two-Part Article Part One of this article outlined the basic elements of a subordination, non-disturbance and attornment agreement (SNDA), which regulates two competing interests in the same property — tenant's right to possess its premises pursuant to its lease and mortgage lender's security interest in that same premises. Part Two explains the differences between the concepts of "non-disturbance" and "recognition," while contending that lease recognition is more important to the tenant than not having its possession disturbed.
Columns & Departments
Case Notes
Court Decides Who Is the 'Prevailing Party' No Duty to Collect Rent from Subsequent Tenant
Features

A Tenant's Perspective on SNDAs: Non-Disturbance Is Not Enough
Part One of a Two-Part Article This article outlines the basic elements of an SNDA and will explain the differences between the concepts of "non-disturbance" and "recognition," while contending that lease recognition is more important to the tenant than not having its possession disturbed.
Features

Fees on Fees
Collecting the Legal Fees It Cost You to Collect Legal Fees Does your New York commercial lease form expressly provide that the landlord may recover the legal fees it incurs to recover legal fees from its tenant? If not, then the landlord may be out of luck trying to recover such "fees on fees," as they are known. But it wasn't always this way.
Features

New York's 2019 Rent Laws: Impact on Commercial Landlords
NY Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation modifying existing rent laws and enacting significant landlord-tenant reforms. To date, the real estate industry has focused primarily on the sweeping impact the new laws will have on residential tenancies and the deregulation of rent-stabilized apartments. The reforms, however, also dramatically impact commercial tenancies by altering non-residential summary proceedings and significantly hampering the ability of commercial landlords to respond effectively and quickly to tenant defaults.
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