Sky View Parc Condominum, Queens
In what has been hailed as “the city’s largest condo refund ever” (Curbed NY) and “a settlement likely to send shivers through the ranks of the city’s condo developers” (the New York Post), clients of Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C., have recovered 75 percent of $5 million in down payments on $50 million worth of luxury apartments. The agreement, which has recouped $3.69 million plus interest for 118 buyers at the massive Sky View Parc complex in Flushing, is the largest settlement on record in New York under the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act (“ILSA”).
The plaintiffs, hardworking individuals and their families, had hoped to purchase condominium units in the Sky View Parc Condominium to use as their homes. They each made substantial contract deposits in the expectation that they would be able to obtain mortgages on their purchases and with assurances that the Sponsor had lined up preferred lenders to provide financing. However, when the mortgage market collapsed in late 2008, mortgage financing became unavailable on new projects like the Sky View Parc Condominium, and the plaintiffs, now unable to close on their purchases, faced the loss of their contract deposits – often their entire life savings.
However under ILSA, a federal statute designed to assure buyers that they are fully informed of the risks they are undertaking when purchasing in a new development – a statute the sponsors simply ignored – each of the plaintiffs were entitled to obtain refunds of their hard-earned contract deposits. ILSA requires condominium sponsors to register new developments with the Housing and Urban Development department and to provide buyers with property disclosure reports. Many condominium developers, including the developers of Sky View Parc, did not comply.
Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C., commenced the suit, captioned Sky View Parc Purchasers Association, et al. v. FTC Residential Company II, L.P., Case No. 10-CV-5252, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York, in November 2010. The parties engaged in discovery until the spring of 2011, when settlement discussions ensued.
Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C. attorney Adam Leitman Bailey represented the plaintiffs.
