After more than two years of dormancy, the enforcement arm of Attorney General Cuomo's real estate bureau is being revived, Mr. Cuomo said in an interview yesterday.
The attorney general's office has put forward a bill that would raise the maximum fee for reviewing offering plans to $30,000, a 50% increase. If the bill, which would affect only larger developers, passes next year, the new revenue will be used to add staff to the Real Estate Finance Bureau.
Real estate attorneys say that, since 2005, they have been unable to get the office to follow through on complaints filed against developers who refuse to fix buildings with shoddy construction.
The attorney general's office has the authority to litigate and mediate disputes with developers who commit fraud under the Martin Act, the law that allows the office to investigate and prosecute companies that issue stock fraudulently.
But personnel in the enforcement section of the bureau were moved to the section that reviews offering plans, as the number of filings rose to nearly 1,000 in 2007 from about 300 in 2002, Mr. Cuomo said.
"The number of plans we are reviewing has grown, but our staffing has been flat," he said in a telephone interview. "I heard about it on the campaign trail from tenants and developers. … This problem is infuriating to all parties." Senator Owen Johnson, a Republican of Babylon, N.Y., and Assemblywoman Helene Weinstein, a Democrat of Brooklyn, sponsored the bill, which is still in committee. It has the support of the New York City Bar Association, the Real Estate Board of New York, and the Council of New York Cooperatives & Condominiums.
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source: nysun.com
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