Just when I started thinking the Western Pennsylvania Mortgage Fraud Task Force was slowing down, since I hadn’t seen any press releases in a while, the Department of Justice announced that the task force was going strong on its third anniversary. The U.S....
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Bradley Dornish
Cutting the Pie — Real Estate Partition Actions in Pennsylvania
When more than one person owns an interest in Pennsylvania real estate, and the owners can’t agree on the management or sale of the property, a special type of equity proceeding called Partition Action is the way to resolve the issues in court. In my practice,...
2010 Year End Update on Rental Registration Cases
As we approach the end of the year and look back on our progress on Western Pennsylvania rental registration cases, it has been both a busy and a productive year. In Pittsburgh, City Council is considering the revised draft ordinance which PROA, ACRE, WPREIA,...
Entities for Business and Real Estate Investing 2011
Fall is the time to plan your entity structure for your business for the coming year. You want to have everything set up the way you want it, and enough time to make the transition on January 1st. Of course, you can start a new entity any time you need to, but...
Seller Beware of PA’s Disclosure Law
The latin maxim “caveat emptor”, or “Buyer Beware”, was long the standard for the purchase of real estate. This was mostly true in Pennsylvania until the passage in 2000 of the “Real Estate Seller Disclosure Law, 68 Pa. C.S.A. Section 7301, et. seq., also known...
Don’t Let the Bedbugs Bite You or Your Wallet
I remember the good night saying “Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the bedbugs bite” from my childhood. But for many years, I didn’t think bedbugs were real, and for many more, thought they were extinct. Recently, however, they have come back, and are the...
Mortgage Fraud Task Force Hits Real Estate Investors Close to Home
Beaver Financial Services was for several years a vendor member of Acre of Pittsburgh, and several of its loan officers attended meetings each month, in their light blue shirts with beavers on them, offering to help investors obtain bank financing. The company...
A Little Fraud Goes a Long Way, But You Can Stop It
In just over a month, I have seen three Pittsburgh Real Estate Lawyers lose their careers, reputations, huge sums of money, and soon, their freedom, over mortgage fraud. I knew and dealt with each of them. They all had good educations, many years of...
Collection of Bad Checks
The expressions “bouncing a check” or “writing a bad check” are popular in today’s society. The question arises though: what do they really mean and what can you do if someone issues you a bad check? In Pennsylvania, bouncing a check occurs when a person...
EPA Delays Enforcement of Certification for Lead Safe Renovation, Repair and Painting
If you have not yet taken the EPA approved RRP contractor certification class, and have work to do on your pre-1978 properties, you have a little breathing room. The EPA announced Friday, June 18th that it is postponing the enforcement of the requirement that...