The most recent federal Coronavirus stimulus law, finally signed on December 27, 2020, extends the PPP loan program to residential cooperatives.

New York has recently amended its power of attorney (POA) statute, which should be effective in 2021. All businesses in New York that receive POAs must accept them unless they have a good reason not to. Businesses are advised to adopt procedures to ensure that they only accept POAs that provide maximum protection from liability and that they properly reject those that do not.

Our clients have recently experienced an uptick in problems with real estate documents that were either incorrectly or “secretly” recorded against property in the New York City Register’s office. Problems arising from such recordings were discovered years after the documents were recorded, when solving the problems had become difficult. Even when our clients had title insurance to protect against an error, a stitch in time would have been much less costly, and less aggravating, than nine stitches of cure. Thus, we are republishing a notice that we distributed six years ago about a procedure available through the New York City Register’s Automated City Register Information System (ACRIS) to obtain alerts about real estate filings.

For over 100 years, the Federal Reserve has acted as a liquidity facility for the banking industry, meaning that the Federal Reserve lends money to banks when they need it. With the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic and the CARES Act stimulus program, Congress provided a budget authorization that allows the Federal Reserve to make or purchase interests in loans to “Main Street” businesses. The Federal Reserve’s resulting “Main Street Lending Facility” has been gradually rolled out since early April, and it is about to reach the point where borrowers can begin submitting loan applications.

Although there are three “Main Street” lending programs, this blog will concentrate on two of them, the “Main Street New Loan Facility” (referred to below as a “New Loan”) and the “Main Street Priority Loan Facility” (referred to below as a “Priority Loan”).  Although these two programs had substantial differences when first proposed, the terms have now converged, making some bankers wonder why the two programs have not been combined. This blog is based upon the most current term sheets issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston on June 8. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston is the lead Federal Reserve Bank responsible for implementing the Main Street program.

Attorneys Jay Hack and David Azrin answer questions about unemployment and small businesses on News 12

Attorneys Jay Hack and David Azrin answer questions about unemployment and small businesses on News 12

GDB attorneys joined News 12's Elizabeth Hashagen to answer questions about unemployment, small businesses, and going back to work.

The corporate wizard can no longer hide behind the anonymity curtain. Anonymity disappears when a corporation or other entity deals with a bank. Federal law requires that banks collect information about all 25% owners and at least one senior officer of every entity that opens a deposit account or borrows money from a bank.

Partner Jay L. Hack presented, “Anatomy of a Residential Mortgage Loan” as part of the New York State Bar Association’s Bridging the Gap program for recently admitted attorneys.
Also, Mr. Hack moderated a panel on Funding Alternatives for Real Estate Capital Improvements at a meeting of the New York Association of Realty Managers.

Legal Update

Legal Update

Legal Update

Computer hacking, cybersecurity and selling social security numbers on the “Dark Web” are front page topics almost every day.  Computer hackers are not just concerns of political parties, Equifax and Target.  If you keep customer personal data, like social security or driver’s license numbers, in electronic form, you need to implement computer security systems. If you do business with any state-licensed company in the banking, insurance or mortgage lending business and have access to its computerized data, you have even more cybersecurity worries. Here are some steps we recommend to protect against running afoul of the law.

Legal Update

Jay L. Hack quoted in ACAMS

Banks reviewing their transactions to determine links they might have to President Trump.

Legal Update

Legal Update

Legal Update

Legal Update