Sun-Sentinel Opinion Article By Alan Becker & Allen M. Levine Urges
U.S. Congress, HUD Action to Resolve Problem
FT. LAUDERDALE, FL – April 14, 2008 – Individuals who purchased Florida condo units in good faith in recent years face yet another threat to their property’s value from a rising tide of lawsuits by speculative investors seeking to exploit loopholes in a 40-year old law known as the Interstate Land Sales Full Disclosure Act, say two prominent South Florida attorneys.
In an Opinion piece published Saturday in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, attorneys Alan Becker and Allen Levine of the law firm Becker & Poliakoff (www.becker-poliakoff.com) write that the mushrooming litigation, based on perceived loopholes in the federal legislation, known as ILSA, and governing regulations issued by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), represents a serious problem for the residential real estate market, particularly in Florida and potentially nationwide.
The full text of the Opinion piece can be found online at the Sun-Sentinel.com at: http://tinyurl.com/5czs7q or http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/opinion/sfl-condo12forumsbapr12,0,2260792.story.
Becker, who is a co-founder and Managing Shareholder of the firm, and Levine, who leads Becker & Poliakoff’s statewide real estate litigation practice, have called on the U.S. Congress and HUD to immediately address the problems with the ILSA legislation and governing regulations, which threaten to exacerbate the already troubled Florida residential condominium market.
“ILSA was originally intended to protect unknowing home buyers from unscrupulous developers who were selling property on swampland or wasteland unsuitable for development,” Becker & Levine said in their article. While the legislation made sense 40 years ago when parts of Florida were truly undeveloped, they added, “now that the condo market is in a slump, some purchasers are taking advantage of the ambiguously worded regulations” to get out of contracts in highly developed areas.
“The majority of buyers behind these lawsuits are speculative short-term investors, commonly referred to as ‘flippers,’ who purchased units in highly developed areas of Florida but are now worried they won't be able to resell the units or make as much of a profit as they had hoped,” the attorneys continued. “If these lawsuits are successful, it will set a dangerous precedent for large numbers of buyers skipping out on their contracts every time the market takes a downward turn, despite being provided with the completed unit they originally purchased.”
Becker and Levine called on Congress and Florida legislators, in particular, to work together with HUD and “take immediate action to close the loopholes in ILSA before the real estate market is dragged down even further, harming not only developers and lenders but the true consumers that the law was originally designed to protect.”
A former three-term Florida State Legislator, Alan Becker also serves in key leadership positions in Florida economic development organizations, including Enterprise Florida and The Beacon Council, Miami Dade County's private-public economic development agency. As Managing Shareholder of Becker & Poliakoff, Alan Becker is responsible for lead management responsibilities at the 34-year-old law firm and also heads business development, recruitment and strategic planning for the firm.
Firm shareholder Allen Levine leads Becker & Poliakoff’s statewide real estate litigation practice team and has extensive experience representing multi-national and domestic businesses, developers, investors, community associations, contractors, and suppliers in business litigation. A member of the Broward Alliance Board of Directors, the Broward Alliance Investors Council, and person of the Broward Alliance Business Development Committee, Levine is also a recipient of the Florida Economic Development Council's Richard L. McLaughlin Award, recognizing his contribution to economic development in Florida.
More information about Alan Becker can be found online at: http://www.becker-poliakoff.com/attorneys/bios/becker_a.html
More information about Allen Levine can be found online at: http://www.becker-poliakoff.com/attorneys/bios/levine_a.html
About Becker & Poliakoff, P.A.
Becker & Poliakoff, P.A. is a diversified commercial law firm based in Ft. Lauderdale with more than one hundred twenty five attorneys in fourteen Florida offices, plus New York, Prague and affiliated offices in China, France and Israel. In addition to Real Estate Litigation, the firm counsels clients in legal issues relating to Community Association Law, Real Estate, Construction, Litigation, Government Law & Lobbying, Corporate & Tax, International Business and Trade, and many other areas of law. For more information, visit: http://www.becker-poliakoff.com.
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