The Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) is a federal consumer protection law that regulates the real estate settlement process, including the servicing of loans and the assignment of those loans. RESPA places a number of duties on lenders and loan servicers, including requirements that borrowers be given notice by both a transferor and a transferee when their loan is transferred to a new lender or servicer, and that loan servicers respond promptly to borrowers' written requests for information. It takes a qualified written request to trigger the loan servicer's duties under RESPA to acknowledge and respond. RESPA defines a … [Read more...]
FDIC Insurance Update
Last summer, a law was enacted that raised the standard maximum deposit insurance amount (SMDIA) to $250,000. The law made permanent a previous temporary increase to $250,000 from the former maximum limit of $100,000. The new permanent maximum limit should especially benefit consumers who figure to have more than $ 100,000—such as in multi-year certificates of deposit—in their bank beginning in 2014, when the temporary hike in the maximum limit had been scheduled to expire. It is important to bear in mind that the SMDIA does not mean that under no circumstances may a single individual have insurance on more than $250,000 in a single … [Read more...]
Deleting Company E-Mail
When a telecommunications company went defunct, almost literally on his way out the door, the former president and CEO of the company allegedly deleted certain e-mails from the company's computers. When the company was placed in receivership, the receiver sued the former executive for a variety of his actions taken in connection with the collapse of the company. Among these claims was an assertion that when he deleted the e-mails, allegedly to cover up some misconduct, the executive violated the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA). One of the executive's arguments was that the CFAA only makes it illegal to damage computers, and … [Read more...]
How to Franchise Your Business
You have a small successful business and you just have that feeling that it could be replicated with equal success. One traditional means of doing this would be to open more company stores on your own. But doing so obviously would take lots of capital and time, and you can only be stretched so far and still feel in control of what could be distant additional locations. Franchising is a time-tested alternative for expansion that, at least over the long run, should involve less of your own time and money. If all goes well, and the odds of that are certainly enhanced by gelling good professional advice at each step in the process, you can … [Read more...]
A.J. Glassman Wins Class Action Suit For Real Estate Fraud Claim
The Los Angeles Superior Court approved a class action lawsuit and settlement filed by The Law Offices of A.J. Glassman on behalf of 75 plaintiffs (investors of a real estate consortium.) The settlement disallowed almost Ten Million Dollars in claims made by the defendants. In other words, no defendant received any distribution of their claimed Ten Million Dollar investment and only the plaintiffs received distributions. In additiona, upon certification as a Class Action, the defendants were required to provide financial disclosures to the plaintiffs for themselves and their companies. In the event that there was a material … [Read more...]
Different Ways to Hold Investment Property
Convinced that property values have finally bottomed out in your area, you decide to take the plunge and buy some real estate as an investment. As the saying goes, buy low and (hope to) sell high. In such ventures, one of the earliest and most important decisions concerns which type of ownership entity is best suited for raising capital and securing the financing to fund the acquisition or improvement of the property. There is an extensive array of possible forms of ownership. They include individual ownership, tenancy in common, joint venture, general partnership, limited partnership, limited liability partnership, limited liability … [Read more...]
Employment Retaliation Claims Surging
The case can be made that discriminating against an individual in the workplace because of the person's gender, race, religion, and similar characteristics is something of a behavioral aberration that is not a part of human nature—or at least most people would like to think that is the case. But what about the scenario in which a manager takes it out on an employee who has sued or threatened to sue the employer (and maybe the manager, too) for some type of discrimination? Such retaliation may not spring from the most noble of instincts, but it is rooted in common human emotions. Psychological theorizing aside, the fact is that … [Read more...]
Cybersquatting and the Courts
A former employee who refused to give up a domain name that he had registered for the benefit of his former employer has been hit with a sizeable damages verdict. The federal appeals court that heard his case looked unfavorably on his having held the domain name for "ransom," and agreed that the employee had violated the federal Anti-cybersquatting Consumer Protection Act (ACPA). Meanwhile, an Illinois company was unsuccessful in bringing a claim against a Texas company under the ACPA. Although the Texas company had registered a domain name similar to one held by the Illinois company, there was not sufficient jurisdiction for the Texas … [Read more...]
Real Estate Roundup
Home Appraisal Fraud Joseph and Kimberli bought an unimproved lot in a subdivision and then engaged an architect and a contractor to design and build the home of their dreams on it. The lot and finished home together would cost them about $731,000. They borrowed most of the sales price from a bank, which sought and obtained an appraisal from an appraiser regularly used by the bank. Conveniently enough, the appraisal came in at about $731,000 when conducted under both a cost approach and a sales comparison approach. After the couple had been in their new house about a year, Kimberli lost her job and the couple went back to the hank to … [Read more...]
