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Property Law and Real Estate

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Articles 1 - 13 of 13

Full-Text Articles in Law

Summary Eviction Proceedings As A Debt Collection Tool: How Landlords Use Serial Eviction Filings To Collect Rent, Grace Vetromile May 2024

Summary Eviction Proceedings As A Debt Collection Tool: How Landlords Use Serial Eviction Filings To Collect Rent, Grace Vetromile

Brooklyn Law Review

This note explores how landlords use housing court as a debt collection tool, impacting the rights of tenants and their ability to fairly adjudicate claims in summary eviction proceedings. Disparities in the number of evictions that are filed, as compared to evictions that are ultimately executed, indicate that landlords do not always use eviction proceedings to kick out a tenant, but rather as a method of debt collection. Using these proceedings in this manner affects a tenant’s ability to defend against eviction, even when the tenant has meritorious claims that their landlord did not provide a habitable apartment. This note …


Artful Imbalance: How The Us Tax Code And State Trust Laws Enable The Growth Of Inequality Through High-Value Art Collections, Mimi Strauss Mar 2024

Artful Imbalance: How The Us Tax Code And State Trust Laws Enable The Growth Of Inequality Through High-Value Art Collections, Mimi Strauss

Brooklyn Law Review

The United States has become the leading jurisdiction for those who wish to buy and store high-value art and NFTs, pay as few taxes as possible, and ultimately secure their wealth for generations. This “onshore” tax crisis is the result of tax loopholes, money laundering, the securitization of art and NFTs, and the state-by-state trust system. These forms of tax dodging—both legal and illegal—contribute to wealth inequality and deplete the welfare state. As natural disasters and pandemics become ever more present, the United States will rely more heavily on taxes, and that burden should be carried by everyone, not just …


Libertad For All? Why The Helms-Burton Act Is An Empty Promise Of “Freedom” For The Cuban People., Cristina L. Lang Dec 2020

Libertad For All? Why The Helms-Burton Act Is An Empty Promise Of “Freedom” For The Cuban People., Cristina L. Lang

Brooklyn Law Review

After the Cuban Revolution, the Castro government nationalized the property of many American nationals, which served as a justification for the Kennedy administration’s decision to institute a general economic embargo on Cuba. This embargo was officially codified in the late 1990s in the Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Libertad) Act, enacted by President Bill Clinton. Title III of this Act was suspended since its enactment. By creating a private cause of action for American nationals to sue “traffickers” of their improperly nationalized Cuban property, Title III aims to deter foreign investment into Cuba and compensate American citizens whose Cuban property …


Wills Speak, Katheleen Guzman Jun 2020

Wills Speak, Katheleen Guzman

Brooklyn Law Review

Legal maxims calcify. It is often unclear whether a given saying – particularly a catchy one that seems to make perfect sense – was always and remains actual law, or whether at some point its iteration and confident reiteration alchemized a useful shortcut into something much more. Such is the case for the aphorism that “no will speaks until the death of its maker,” which is pervasive but incomplete. Wills speak upon execution all the time. They simply don’t speak as conveyance. Candidly recognizing the determinism of the maxim invites fresh inquiry over the nature of the expectancy. If wills …


Inequality In The Sharing Economy, Gregory M. Stein Jun 2020

Inequality In The Sharing Economy, Gregory M. Stein

Brooklyn Law Review

The rise of the sharing economy benefits consumers and providers alike. Consumers can access a wider range of goods and services on an as-needed basis and no longer need to own a smaller number of costly assets that sit unused most of the time. Providers can engage in profitable short-term ventures, working on their own schedule and enjoying many new opportunities to supplement their income. Sharing economy platforms often employ dynamic pricing, which means that the price of a good or service varies in real time as supply and demand change. Under dynamic pricing, the price of a good or …


Fraying The Knot: Marital Property, Probate, And Practical Problems With Tribal Marriage Bans, Suzianne D. Painter-Thorne Apr 2020

Fraying The Knot: Marital Property, Probate, And Practical Problems With Tribal Marriage Bans, Suzianne D. Painter-Thorne

Brooklyn Law Review

While marriage equality is thought to be the law of the land, that is not necessarily true for members of nearly a dozen Indian tribes that continue to prohibit same-sex marriage. Whether a tribe permits same-sex marriage rests on the tribes’ inherent authority to govern their own internal affairs. Acting pursuant to that inherent authority, many tribes were leaders on the issue of marriage equality, legalizing same-sex marriage when most states prohibited such marriages. Other tribes, however, like the Navajo Nation, limit marriages to “one man and one woman.” As a consequence, a married Indian couple may have their marriage …


Things Fall Apart (Next Door): Discriminatory Maintenance And Decreased Home Values As The Next Fair Housing Battleground, Michelle Y. Ewert Jun 2019

Things Fall Apart (Next Door): Discriminatory Maintenance And Decreased Home Values As The Next Fair Housing Battleground, Michelle Y. Ewert

Brooklyn Law Review

Banks that once preyed on communities of color through predatory lending now drive property values down by failing to adequately maintain foreclosed properties they own in those neighborhoods. Declining home values are especially destructive in communities of color because the family home is often a household’s most significant asset and, thus, the key to accumulating wealth and creating opportunity. This article argues that neighboring homeowners whose property values have declined as a result of banks’ discriminatory maintenance of foreclosed properties have standing to sue those banks under the Fair Housing Act (FHA). This article explores historic barriers to homeownership in …


Dismantling Mid-Century Urban Renewal: A Community-Based Approach For The Future Of New York City, Alia Soomro May 2019

Dismantling Mid-Century Urban Renewal: A Community-Based Approach For The Future Of New York City, Alia Soomro

Brooklyn Law Review

Despite more than half a century since urban renewal programs were first established throughout the United States, these urban development programs are still negatively associated with the destruction of communities, displacement, and poor urban planning practices. While many jurisdictions continue to utilize state urban renewal legislation, few of these jurisdictions have actually addressed the future of urban renewal programs. This note focuses on urban renewal in New York City, where many of these plans are about to expire, and asks whether urban renewal programs—with its infamous history—can be utilized in an equitable and sustainable way. Analyzing Local Law No. 40 …


Better Left Forgotten: An Argument Against Treating Some Social Media And Digital Assets As Inheritance In An Era Of Platform Power, Shelly Kreiczer-Levy, Ronit Donyets-Kedar May 2019

Better Left Forgotten: An Argument Against Treating Some Social Media And Digital Assets As Inheritance In An Era Of Platform Power, Shelly Kreiczer-Levy, Ronit Donyets-Kedar

Brooklyn Law Review

Restraining technological platforms’ power has become one of the main concerns of our era. The control over cyberspace and data ownership are among the key issues addressed in the literature. Yet, the ongoing vigorous debate surrounding the inheritance of digital assets remains surprisingly oblivious of the platform’s involvement in shaping memory and continuity. Current legal scholarship and legislation ask whether social network profiles are inheritable property; they balance the user’s privacy and wishes against family members’ interests, without addressing or even considering the corporate power at play. This article argues that we are constantly asking the wrong questions. Instead of …


A Wall Of Hate: Eminent Domain And Interest-Convergence, Philip Lee Jan 2019

A Wall Of Hate: Eminent Domain And Interest-Convergence, Philip Lee

Brooklyn Law Review

Through the power of eminent domain, President Donald Trump is seeking to take properties owned by private landowners and Native American tribes, including people’s homes and businesses, to build a continuous physical wall along the two thousand-mile border between the United States and Mexico. He has even partially shut down the government for the longest period in history in order to pressure Congress to fund his wall. Substantial evidence suggests that this massive government condemnation scheme will not effectuate Trump’s primary purpose: to stop illegal immigration. If Trump succeeds, then potentially thousands of people from all racial backgrounds will lose …


The End Of The Home Affordable Modification Program And The Start Of A New Problem, Christopher K. Whelan Jul 2018

The End Of The Home Affordable Modification Program And The Start Of A New Problem, Christopher K. Whelan

Brooklyn Law Review

The mortgage crisis hit the United States hard, leaving millions of homeowners facing hardship and foreclosure. One of many programs enacted during the mortgage crisis was the Home Affordable Modification Program (HAMP). The Obama Administration set out to assist three to four million struggling homeowners in modifying their mortgages and avoiding foreclosure. This note examines HAMP, focusing on the years of litigation that shaped HAMP, giving life to a program that was built on a foundation ready to crack. HAMP provided homeowners with modified mortgage payments, typically beginning with a trial period plan. Once completed, homeowners were routinely denied, resulting …


Property As A Management Institution, Lynda L. Butler Jan 2017

Property As A Management Institution, Lynda L. Butler

Brooklyn Law Review

The institution of property serves an important management function for society, guiding the use of resources among its members by delegating to the owner the power to decde how and when to use a resource. Under the dominant American approach, this delegation involves recognizing broad decision-making powers in the individual property owner. Grounded in an exclusion-based view of property, the dominant approach recognizes each property owner as a gatekeeper, with important in rem rights that bind all others—even those not in a direct relationship with the owner. Over time, courts and other lawmakers have developed doctrines and rules of law …


Varying The Variance: How New York City Can Solve Its Housing Crisis And Optimize Land Use To Serve The Public Interest, Nathan T. Boone Jan 2016

Varying The Variance: How New York City Can Solve Its Housing Crisis And Optimize Land Use To Serve The Public Interest, Nathan T. Boone

Brooklyn Law Review

As Millennials repopulate American cities and seek jobs in creative industries, housing affordability has risen to the forefront of urban policy battles. Major conflicts exist between homeowners, renters, municipal governments, and growing industries regarding the proper way to grapple with an influx of new capital, both financial and human. New York City is a prime example of this problem. Housing cost increases have exceeded income increases, leaving a large percentage of New Yorkers “rent burdened.” This note seeks to examine a likely cause of the present problem: zoning and variance systems that limit the ability of private land owners to …