In a decision dated November 25, 2020, the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York upheld the validity of three local laws enacted in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Local Laws are the “Residential harassment law” (Local Law 56-2020, amending Admin. Code Section 27-2004(a)(48)); the “Commercial harassment law”...

A lease between the Plaintiff, as landlord, and the Defendant, as tenant, was terminated. Under the Settlement Agreement the Defendant paid the Plaintiff $261,751.73. The Agreement also required the Defendant to make monthly “Surrender Payments” and further provided that if the Defendant defaulted under the Agreement “the aggregate amount of all...

On December 15, 2020, New York State amended Title 15 (“Statutory short form and other powers of attorney for financial and estate planning”) of Article 5 of New York State’s General Obligations Law. Chapter  323  of the Laws of 2020 is effective on “the 180^th day after it shall have become a law, provided, that any statutory short form power of...

A lease to a part of certain property granted the tenant an “option to buy”. Notwithstanding this provision, and a “first option to buy” granted by the lease to a person not a party to this action, the fee owner - lessor’s sole shareholder sold her shares to one of the Defendants. 

 In 2012, the Plaintiff, the Petitioner on appeal, purchased a single-family residence in the Town of Grand Island, in Erie County, for the purpose of renting it out for periods of less than thirty days. In 2015, the Town enacted Local Law 9 prohibiting in certain zoning districts, short-term rentals unless the owner resided on the property....

The amended complaint for the foreclosure of a mortgage stated that the note, which had been assigned to it with the related mortgage, had been “permanently lost, stolen or inadvertently destroyed” but, notwithstanding, the Plaintiff could maintain the action under the authority of Uniform Commercial Code Section 3-804 (“Lost, destroyed or stolen...