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Showing 3 posts from August 2015.
Debtors May Want To Take It All Off, But The Supreme Court Says Junior Liens Can’t Be Stripped
It’s not an uncommon sight, especially in light of the burst of the housing bubble in recent years: a debtor in bankruptcy has two mortgages on a property with a fair market value of less than the amount of the senior mortgage. The junior mortgage lien is then wholly underwater, so that creditor would receive nothing from the sale of the property. The question then becomes, can the debtor void those liens in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy proceeding? The Supreme Court, in an increasingly rare show of unanimity, said “No.” More >
Public Improvement Liens on Government-Owned Projects
While prior blog posts have discussed the basics of mechanics liens as they relate to private construction projects, this post addresses public improvement liens on property owned by the state, a subdivision or agency thereof, or by any city, county, urban-county, or charter county government (hereafter collectively “Government Entity”).[1] As one may imagine, while the principle purpose behind the filing of public improvement liens and private mechanics liens is the same (i.e. to ensure payment for labor, materials and/or supplies furnished on the project), perfection and enforcement of public improvement liens on property owned by a Government Entity differs significantly from the perfection and enforcement of mechanic’s liens against privately owned property. More >
Disparate Impact Claims Fair Game under the Fair Housing Act
The United States Supreme Court, in a five-to-four decision in June, brought housing discrimination law ever-so-slightly more in line with Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (“Title VII”) by holding that claims of disparate impact are cognizable under the Fair Housing Act (“FHA”). The court took great pains, however, to limit the impact of the holding as well as putting a substantial onus on a plaintiff to prove causal connections between challenged policies and alleged disparities. More >
