BREAKING NEWS CORONAVIRUS UPDATE

Empire State Development Corporation Issues Guidance On What Businesses Provide an “Essential Function” Under Executive Order 202.6, as Revised

Executive Order No. 202.6 directed that all businesses and non-profit entities are required to reduce their in-person workforce by 75%, and Governor Cuomo’s “New York State on PAUSE” Executive Order (the “PAUSE Order” will increase that reduction to 100% for all non-essential businesses, effective Sunday, March 22 at 8PM. The PAUSE Order will also impose restrictions and include guidance on social gatherings, use of public transportation and other social interaction.

Businesses that provide “essential services” are exempt from the workforce reduction. Executive Order 202.6 referred generally to certain business groups and directed the New York State Department of Economic Development a/k/a Empire State Development Corporation) (ESDC) to promulgate guidance on what constitutes an “essential service” exempting that business from the mandated workforce reduction.

The ESDC has now issued those revised guidelines (see attached). Included within the guidelines are industries affecting our clients, as follows:

Essential services to maintain the “safety, sanitation and essential operations of residences or other essential businesses” include:

  • law enforcement
  • fire prevention and response
  • building code enforcement
  • security
  • emergency management and response
  • building cleaners or janitors
  • general maintenance whether employed by the entity directly or a vendor
  • automotive repair
  • disinfection* [See Note 1 below]

Note 1: “Doormen”, which were deemed essential under the draft guidelines, have been removed. Buildings should decide the extent to which their doormen fulfill essential functions, such as security, janitorial, mail or package distribution.

Essential specific services include:

  • trash and recycling collection, processing and disposal
  • mail and shipping services
  • laundromats
  • building cleaning and maintenance
  • child care services
  • auto repair
  • warehouse/distribution and fulfillment
  • funeral homes, crematoriums and cemeteries
  • storage for essential businesses
  • animal shelters

Essential construction includes:

  • skilled trades such as electricians, plumbers
  • other related construction firms and professionals for essential infrastructure or for emergency repair and safety purposes

Essential financing institutions include:

  • banks
  • insurance
  • payroll
  • accounting
  • services related to financial markets

Any business not identified in the ESDC’s guidance as being an “essential” business or service may request designation from the ECDC. All businesses, whether essential or otherwise, are urged to maintain social distancing, proper health guidelines and adherence to separate restrictions imposed during this crisis.

We will keep all readers informed as we learn more.

BREAKING NEWS CORONAVIRUS UPDATE

Governor Cuomo Extends Lockdown on “Non-Essential”
Businesses to 100% of Employees

Governor Cuomo announced today that New York State would take a “pause,” requiring that 100% of employees of “non-essential businesses” cannot go to their place of employment. The “pause” included specific guidelines affecting persons over 70 and vulnerable persons under 70. We are awaiting the specific text of the Executive Order.

What are “Essential Businesses”?

For real estate purposes, the following are deemed “essential businesses”:

  • trash and recycling collection, processing and disposal
  • laundromats/dry cleaning
  • building cleaning and maintenance
    security
  • emergency management and response
  • building cleaners or janitors
  • disinfection
  • doormen

Construction including

  • skilled trades such as electricians, plumbers
  • other related construction firms and professionals for essential infrastructure or for emergency repair and safety purposes

The Empire State Development website includes a number that you can call if you wish to know whether your business is “essential.”

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Electronic Notarization Available.

Notaries will now be allowed to acknowledge scanned documents that have been send to them. If they do not know the person signing, they must see proof identification before they notarize. They must also receive an original of the signed document within thirty days.

We will keep all readers informed as we learn more.

BREAKING NEWS CORONAVIRUS UPDATE

Governor Cuomo Announces Executive Order Imposing
90-day Moratorium on Mortgage Payments and Mortgage Foreclosures

Governor Cuomo announced at a press conference this afternoon that he plans to order a 90-day moratorium on all mortgage payments and mortgage foreclosures. Mortgage payments will be suspended for three months based on financial hardship, and mortgage foreclosures will be deferred or postponed for the same period.

The deferred payments would not be forgiven; rather, they would be added at the back end of the loan.

Numerous questions arise, such as whether the suspension applies to both residential and commercial mortgages; whether it applies only to principal and interest, or also includes escrow and reserve payments whether it applies to cooperatives and condominiums or only to “lending institutions”; and how “financial hardship” would be determined.

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New York Landlords Can File For Evictions and Non-Payment
Despite Moratorium on Court Action.

Even though court proceedings for eviction and non-payment actions have been suspended, the statute of limitations for filing these proceedings has not been delayed. Therefore, landlord are continuing to file papers with the courts so as not to lose their rights. Co-ops, condos and other building owners need to decide whether to do the same.
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Local 32BJ and Realty Advisory Board reach “Memorandum of Understanding” Regarding Staff Reductions

Among other things, the MOU provides:

1) The 30-day notice for reductions in force or in hours is suspended as long as it relates to COVID-19. The union must be notified of any such reduction.

2) If an employee must self-monitor or self-quarantine due to a workplace exposure, the employer must pay the employee two (2) weeks “paid time off” without affecting the employee’s other “pto” benefits. Otherwise employees can use their “pto” benefits.

3) Employee termination rights are suspended for 60 days, and the rights of senior employees to replace junior employees in the event of a force reduction is suspended for 30 days.

We will keep all readers informed as we learn more.

Firm News

Jacob Amir won a decision after trial declaring his clients’ shareholder interests in a private corporation, voiding a 2015 deed determined to be fraudulent, and restoring ownership of a nearly eight acre residential property to the corporation. The trial in Westchester involved over 100 exhibits, recreating over 30 years of factual history and followed extensive pretrial discovery, including multiple depositions in and outside New York State.

Firm News

Nancy Durand won an appeal on behalf of a local municipality in a proceeding pursuant to General Municipal Law § 50-e(5), for leave to serve a late notice of claim. The City appealed from an order of the Supreme Court, Westchester County, which granted a motion to renew a petition for leave to serve a late notice of claim that had been denied in a prior order of the same court entered three years earlier, and, upon renewal, granted the petition on the grounds of a change in the law. On January 8, 2020, the Appellate Division, Second Department, reversed, on the law, confirming that a party must seek leave to serve a late notice of claim within one year and 90 days of the accrual date of the claim, in accordance with General Municipal Law § 50-i(1), and a motion to renew does not toll that statutory period or relate back to the original petition.

Firm News

Jacob Amir, a member of the New York State Bar Association’s Committee on Youth, Law and Citizenship, participated in the committee’s conference on October 3 and 4, 2019 on how school districts can better address student and faculty mental health and substance abuse issues.

Firm News

Jack Malley won a preliminary injunction enjoining a Manhattan co-op from evicting his client from the apartment that he, his wife and their kids have lived in since 1994. The case concerns a provision in many New York City proprietary leases that controls the transfer of co-op apartments from an estate of a deceased shareholder to a family member, which states: “If the Lessee shall die, consent shall not be unreasonably withheld to an assignment of the lease and shares to a financially responsible member of the Lessee’s family.” The client inherited the shares allocated to the apartment and proprietary lease appurtenant to it from his father’s estate. In 2018, the Co-op denied the client’s application to transfer the shares and proprietary lease to him from the estate on the ground that he was not financially qualified. By a July 24, 2019 decision, the Hon. Lynn R. Kotler held that Jack and his client demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits and that the co-op’s denial of the application was unreasonable given the client’s net assets, high credit score and long-standing history of good citizenship in the building. Judge Kotler also chided the co-op for not seeking clarification from the client about portions of his application that were purportedly confusing. Jack previously represented two sons in a similar case, which has become the seminal case in New York State regarding the same proprietary lease provision, in which the trial court reversed the co-op’s denial of the sons’ application, and the Appellate Division, First Department and the Court of Appeals affirmed. See Estate of Helen Del Terzo v. 33 Fifth Avenue Owners Corp., 136 A.D.3d 486 (1st Dep’t), affirmed 28 N.Y.3d 1114 (2016).   

Firm News

Tom Smith and Jacob Amir won summary judgment on behalf of a large marina owner in Westchester, obtaining dismissal of claims brought by a commercial tenant seeking money damages and the enforceability of a 99-year ground lease. After extensive discovery, our firm moved to dismiss the complaint because the commercial tenant’s claims, if accepted, would have rendered the ground lease unconscionable, and because the lease was void by frustration of purpose and abandonment. The Supreme Court agreed that the ground lease was rendered terminated, dismissed all of the commercial tenant’s causes of action, and granted our client’s counterclaims for declaratory judgment.