Buyers Worming Out of Contracts
We realize that developers aren’t at the top of everyone’s popularity list but we’d say that buyers are looking like the slimeballs in this situation…According to a New York Times article this morning, buyers who put down deposits at the height of the market are using a 1968 law designed to protect country bumpkins from…
We realize that developers aren’t at the top of everyone’s popularity list but we’d say that buyers are looking like the slimeballs in this situation…According to a New York Times article this morning, buyers who put down deposits at the height of the market are using a 1968 law designed to protect country bumpkins from outright fraud to wriggle out of their obligations. Lawyers are combing through condo filings and other paperwork to find some box or other that developers neglected to check and using that as an excuse to get back hundreds of thousands of dollars for their clients. The statute was never designed for purchasers of luxury condominiums in urban areas to get out of contracts because of changes in the economy, said Bruce H. Lederman, a lawyer defending developers in two of these cases in Long Island City. It was designed to protect unsophisticated out-of-state purchasers like Jackie Gleason in ‘The Honeymooners’ from Florida swampland schemes. Rough.
Developers will just collect from their Lawyers’ E&O policy, if not banks will be left holding the bag anyway. These developers rarely had much of their own money tied up in the heyday.
I’m not shedding any tears for the Lawyers’ E&O carriers or the banks. Taking a huge financial hit to behave “honorably” toward banks and insurance companies just seems silly. To say the buyers are slimeballs is asinine.
No way! Idiot walkers. Manhattan and Brooklyn are up +1000% QOQ!
***Bid half off peak comps***
quote:
“It was designed to protect unsophisticated out-of-state purchasers like Jackie Gleason in ‘The Honeymooners’ from Florida swampland schemes.â€
oh please 95% of the people buying these lux condos in urban areas these days are unsophisticated out-of-state purchasers.
*rob*
developer fails >> cant payback loan to bank >> bank gets bailed out by Fed Gov
buyer screw >> looks around >> realizes Fed Gov aint coming to bail him/her out
so buyer should look out for self cause Gov only looking out for the banks
johnife- Seems like a leap to indict Brownstoner although I happen to agree with you on the rest. At the risk of sounding pedantic, it’s pejorative not perjorative. Great word that loses meaning if misspelled.
In multi-million dollar transactions like this, it’s a battle of rich sophisticates vs rich sophisticates. Morality has no business in these kinds of matters–these are arms-length business decisions.
The developers should be upset with their legal teams for not spotting this issue, not purchasers who are exercising their legal rights. Hire better lawyers next time, guys.
It’s a real estate contract, there is no moral obligation beyond what’s written. It often works in the developers’ advantage, when they don’t deliver what was promised verbally by their broker, and this time, it is working against them. I see crocodile’s tears.
blame the lawyers
Here’s a simple, good idea: everybody behave honorably.
The law can never make up for a society that has no backbone and no honor. At best, it is an imperfect tool.