In recent decisions, the Court of Appeals held that property owners cannot take advantage of luxury decontrol from rent stabilization during a period in which they took advantage of J-51 tax incentives, interpreted New York’s champerty statute narrowly in a suit arising out of securitized mortgages, and rejected a challenge by certain state senators to Governor David Paterson’s appointment of Richard Ravitch as lieutenant governor. We discuss these decisions below.

Rent Decontrol

The Court in Roberts v. Tishman Speyer Properties, L.P., one of the most carefully watched real estate-related cases of the decade, decided that the current and former owners of the Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village apartment complexes in Manhattan were not entitled to take advantage of the luxury decontrol provisions of the Rent Stabilization Law (RSL) during the period in which they were receiving tax incentive benefits under New York City’s J-51 program. The detailed dissent by Judge Susan Phillips Read, joined in by Judge Victoria A. Graffeo, together with the Court’s rarely used format in cases of this kind, a per curiam four-judge majority opinion, suggests the ultimate result did not come easily. Chief Judge Jonathan Lippman took no part.