By LISA PREVOST New York homeowners looking to refinance an existing mortgage don’t have to pay the state’s mortgage recording tax all over again. Yet they may end up doing so if their lenders don’t cooperate. The state charges a recording tax on new mortgage debt. The rate varies by county, with the minimum being Full Article…
Despite ‘Jones,’ Ambiguities In Title Chain Can Be Cured
By Adam Leitman Bailey and Dov Treiman When the Supreme Court decided Jones v. Flowers,1 it exacerbated a nagging problem for the title insurance industry – the necessity to do constitutional analysis when examining chains of title. With the current state of the economy, tax foreclosures are increasing. Thus, more properties have these ambiguities in Full Article…
Power-of-Attorney Changes Scramble Property Transfers, New York Law Journal
By Adam Leitman Bailey and Dov Treiman As of Sept. 1, New York has abolished its old easy single-sheet statutory power of attorney form (POA) and replaced it with a tremendously complicated new law1 describing a highly complex new document with a misleadingly named optional rider.2 The 1948 original form and its successors were designed Full Article…
Title Insurance Complexities in Tax Foreclosure Purchases, Mortgage Banking Magazine
By Adam Leitman Bailey and Dov Treiman For the past four years, nearly every title company providing title insurance in the United States of America has been scrambling to interpret federal and state court decisions setting the rules for determining when a tax foreclosure sale will be safe from judicial knockouts. When the U.S. Supreme Full Article…
Moving Beyond the Mistakes of MERS to Secure a Profitable National Title System, ABA Probate & Property
by Adam Leitman Bailey, Dov Treiman Adam Leitman Bailey is the principal of Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C., in New York, New York. Dov Treiman is a partner in the New York, New York, office of Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. In Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus is called on to sail his crew through the Straits of Messina, Full Article…
Defining When “Time is of the Essence”
By: Adam Leitman Bailey & John M. Desiderio May 9th, 2007 The Court of Appeals has recently reemphasized, for sellers’ attorneys, the importance of drafting clear and unequivocal “time of the essence” clauses in those real estate contracts where circumstances justify conditioning the sale upon the buyer’s timely performance of one or more stated conditions. Full Article…