Overlawyered » real estate http://overlawyered.com Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:11:47 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 “Lawyer Pleads Guilty in Scheme to Elect Condo Board Members Favoring Construction Lawsuits” http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/lawyer-pleads-guilty-in-scheme-to-elect-condo-board-members-favoring-construction-lawsuits/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/lawyer-pleads-guilty-in-scheme-to-elect-condo-board-members-favoring-construction-lawsuits/#comments Wed, 09 Nov 2011 05:24:03 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=25562 “A Las Vegas lawyer who once ran a courthouse restaurant has pleaded guilty in a scheme to take $3,000 in kickbacks to rig two condo board elections in Nevada.” The takeover of the condo boards, advanced by methods that included stuffing ballot boxes with fake ballots, made it possible to bring in a favored law firm to file construction-defect suits. “Federal prosecutors claim conspirators used straw buyers to buy properties in about a dozen condo communities from 2003 to 2009 and helped them win control of condo boards, AP says.” A wider investigation continues whose targets allegedly include judges. [ABA Journal]

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2011/11/lawyer-pleads-guilty-in-scheme-to-elect-condo-board-members-favoring-construction-lawsuits/feed/ 3 “The main force letting protesters stay in the park is old-fashioned crony capitalism” http://overlawyered.com/2011/10/the-main-force-letting-protesters-stay-in-the-park-is-old-fashioned-crony-capitalism/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/10/the-main-force-letting-protesters-stay-in-the-park-is-old-fashioned-crony-capitalism/#comments Mon, 17 Oct 2011 05:04:36 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=25179 Gordon Crovitz at the WSJ tells how muddled property rights, combined with the dependence of real estate developers on the good will of New York’s City Council, have resulted in the continuing occupation of Zuccotti Park.

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2011/10/the-main-force-letting-protesters-stay-in-the-park-is-old-fashioned-crony-capitalism/feed/ 0 Cuba flirts with property ownership http://overlawyered.com/2011/10/cuba-flirts-with-property-ownership/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/10/cuba-flirts-with-property-ownership/#comments Sun, 02 Oct 2011 20:52:20 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=24914 Eduardo Penalver explains at PrawfsBlawg:

Cuban law has long permitted private homeownership…The most significant difference is that Cubans are not permitted to buy or sell their homes. Cuba’s blanket prohibition on sales leads to enormous problems. …The outcome of the 1980s experiment illustrates why Raul Castro’s housing reforms are likely to fail this time around as well. … What the Cuban government refuses to acknowledge is that Cuba’s housing problem is not really a housing problem. It’s a socialism problem.

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2011/10/cuba-flirts-with-property-ownership/feed/ 1 Great moments in legal aid http://overlawyered.com/2011/07/great-moments-in-legal-aid/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/07/great-moments-in-legal-aid/#comments Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:24:19 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=24078 From the United Kingdom: “Foreign squatters given legal aid to fight eviction from £1 million house… as its British owner has to represent himself in court” [Daily Mail, back in February]

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2011/07/great-moments-in-legal-aid/feed/ 8 Ban on smoking by renters http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/ban-on-smoking-by-renters/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/ban-on-smoking-by-renters/#comments Fri, 15 Apr 2011 05:09:59 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=22531 The Bay Area town of Larkspur plans to forbid most apartment and condominium tenants from smoking in their own units. [Marin Independent Journal; related]

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]]> http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/ban-on-smoking-by-renters/feed/ 2 April 6 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/april-6-roundup-2/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/april-6-roundup-2/#comments Wed, 06 Apr 2011 13:08:23 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=22358
  • Lack of defect poses problem for plaintiff: Toyota prevails in first acceleration case [NLJ]
  • Australia: writer Andrew Bolt on trial for alleged racially disparaging columns [Herald Sun, Crikey, The Age]
  • “Attorneys Put Themselves Before Consumers in Class Action over Faulty Computer Chip” [CJAC, Frank/CCAF on NVidia case]
  • Ruling by Federal Circuit is thinning out rush of patent marking cases [Qualters, NLJ, earlier]
  • Podcast: Lester Brickman and “Lawyer Barons” [PoL, earlier here and here]
  • “Are class actions unconstitutional?” [Lahav, Mass Tort Lit, on Martin Redish book]
  • “Free speech belongs on campuses too” [Ilya Shapiro, Cato, on Widener case, with kind mention of Schools for Misrule]
  • King Canute turns attention to dry land: states mull bills to forbid use of distressed properties as appraisal comps [Funnell]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/april-6-roundup-2/feed/ 5     U.K. authorities might seek remedy for squatting http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/u-k-authorities-might-seek-remedy-for-squatting/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/u-k-authorities-might-seek-remedy-for-squatting/#comments Sun, 03 Apr 2011 13:16:11 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=22325 Britain is rethinking its curiously limp penalties for illegal property occupation [Legal Blog Watch]:

    As a result, for example, when hotelier Connan Gupta moved out of his house in Camberwell for a week while it was being renovated, he returned to find 10 unwelcome Italian students who had moved in and changed the locks. Gupta learned that the police were powerless to help him because under existing U.K. law, squatters may legally enter an empty property if they do not cause damage when gaining access. To his dismay, Gupta was required to hire lawyers and begin a lengthy process of trying to evict the squatters. “It’s as if the squatters have more rights than I do,” he said at the time.

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/04/u-k-authorities-might-seek-remedy-for-squatting/feed/ 16     Demands $1.6 million for neighbor noise, $52 million for involving reporter http://overlawyered.com/2011/03/demands-1-6-million-for-neighbor-noise-52-million-for-involving-reporter/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/03/demands-1-6-million-for-neighbor-noise-52-million-for-involving-reporter/#comments Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:09:01 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=22098 A Manhattan couple were sued by their downstairs neighbors for allegedly allowing too much noise that might have been better muffled with carpets. They approached a well-known local reporter who did a segment in his “Shame! Shame! Shame!” consumer series critical of the suit. The plaintiffs proceeded to file a new $52 million suit against their upstairs neighbor for intentional infliction of emotional distress, which a judge has now dismissed. And now the defendant wife and her husband have sued the condo board for removing her from the board, apparently in reaction to the publicity. [TVSpy]

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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/03/demands-1-6-million-for-neighbor-noise-52-million-for-involving-reporter/feed/ 3     February 7 roundup http://overlawyered.com/2011/02/february-7-roundup/ http://overlawyered.com/2011/02/february-7-roundup/#comments Mon, 07 Feb 2011 05:13:26 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=21338
  • Paper by Lester Brickman previews his much-anticipated new book Lawyer Barons [Mass Tort Lit, SSRN] More: Sheila Scheuerman, TortsProf.
  • “A Players’ Class Action Against the NFL for Concussions?” [Russell Jackson]
  • C’mon, DoJ, stop spreading domestic violence myths [Christina Hoff Sommers, USA Today]
  • “Historians as Experts: A Plea for Help” [Bill Childs, TortsProf; related, Nathan Schachtman]
  • Might not really work, though: “A call for aviation liability reform in South Dakota” [PoL]
  • “Chevron Turns Tables on Ecuador Plaintiffs; Sues Them” [WSJ Law Blog, ShopFloor, more, yet more, NYLJ]
  • Hedge funder plays race card against NYC’s famed Dakota co-op. How plausibly? [Business Insider]
  • N.C. official: citizen who challenged road plans might be practicing engineering without a license [N&O]
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    ]]>     http://overlawyered.com/2011/02/february-7-roundup/feed/ 7     $100K battle over pet in condo http://overlawyered.com/2010/12/100k-battle-over-pet-in-condo/ http://overlawyered.com/2010/12/100k-battle-over-pet-in-condo/#comments Mon, 06 Dec 2010 12:55:31 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/?p=20491 A Queens, N.Y. condo owner won her battle to keep her teacup terrier on the premises after a judge found that the condo board had not, as required, obtained the votes of 80 percent of unit owners before adopting a no-pet rule. “The board spent $100,000 on lawyers and the cost is now being passed on to the condo owners — roughly $4,200 apiece. ‘Nobody in the [building] is too happy with me right now because it’s costing everybody a lot of money and it’s not fair to the homeowners, I feel terrible,’ [the winner] said.” [CBS New York]

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