Breaking news: Ambivalent condo buyers suffer serious legal blow
In a legal blow to New York condo purchasers suffering second thoughts, a U.S. District Court judge has rejected the claims of two buyers trying to wriggle out of their contracts at the luxury Harlem development Fifth on the Park.
According to the decision, filed this morning (and attached as a PDF below), one pair of buyers sought to cancel their 2007 contract on a $999,999 unit and retrieve their $49,999 deposit. Another pair of buyers wanted to break their contract for a $1.4 million unit and get back their $143,000 deposit.
Both claimed that because the initial offering plan was for more than 100 condos, the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act (ILSA) required the developer to file a property report prior to contracting signing--and that by failing to do so, the buyers had two years to rescind their contracts.
To the dismay of the plaintiffs, the court found that the developer had to have actually sold at least 100 units for the property-report filing requirement to take effect.
According to the developer’s lawyer, only around 90 or so units had been sold.
“In New York, this is a case of first impression,” says Daniel Ross,the Stroock & Stroock & Lavan lawyer who represented the developer.
Ross noted that similar cases in Florida had been decided the other way.
Here, he says, “the judge read the same statute and the guidelines issued by HUD and ruled that the statute didn’t say what the plaintiffs wanted it to say.”
Four other buyers in the same development have filed similar cases, which have been stayed pending today’s decision.
Ross did not know if the plaintiffs plan to appeal.
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