No Recession in Real Estate Litigation, South Florida Lawyers Find
In the midst of a dismal real estate market, a 46-year-old Florida lawyer has found a full-time occupation. He focuses his practice entirely on real estate matters, often helping formerly hot-to-trot buyers recover at least part of the hefty deposits they made on condominium units under construction.
A federal law has helped the Aventura practitioner get out-of-court settlements in more than 500 deposit cases, reports Bloomberg. Cooper says he’s recovered about half of his clients’ money, but won’t disclose the total or the amount he has earned in contingency fees.
“There’s no recession in the real estate litigation community,” he tells the news agency.
Buyers are trying to get their deposits back rather than complete their purchase of units in the nation’s largest condominium market because prices have fallen sharply and the rapidly rising real estate values that earlier made it almost instantly profitable to buy a condo are no longer an impelling factor.
The federal Interstate Land Sales Act, which regulates disclosure to buyers in construction projects involving 100 or more units, has given many a basis for arguing that they weren’t provided with accurate information by the seller and hence should be released from their purchase contracts, the Bloomberg article explains. During the past two years, well over half of the federal cases filed nationally under the statute were in the Southern District of Florida, according to court records.
“We’re going to have lots of litigation as long as there’s a disconnect between what people are under contract to pay and what the market actually is,” says attorney Jared Beck. A graduate of Harvard Law School, he has sued on behalf of about 500 clients seeking refunds of their deposits on South Florida condos.
