BEYOND REAL ESTATE (It’s a jungle out there)

In addition to real estate, our practice areas include landlord and tenant law, collections, civil litigation, foreclosure defense and criminal law. Over the years I have found that the practice of real estate law is unlike any other area of the law. It is a cooperative effort where there aren’t any winners or losers. Indeed, if the parties don’t close, then everyone loses. This is a truth that takes some time and experience to realize and I find that newly admitted attorneys don’t fully comprehend or appreciate this.

The other areas we practice are quite adversarial and can sometimes lead to some unfortunate and extreme reactions from people. That is quite understandable as people don’t take too kindly to their creditors try to collect money from them nor when their landlords try to evict them. One recent example that has turned quite bizarre is one that I wanted to share by way of this post.

A woman that I have been trying to collect money from on behalf of a client has found a novel way to strike back against me. As she has no defense to the underlying debt, in order to vent her frustration and anger, she has started posting negative comments about me on various websites. Her preferred nom de cyber is “Blasted” and she identifies herself as being from either from Los Angeles or West Hollywood. As her postings are clearly inappropriate and have no basis in fact, most, if not all, have been quickly deleted.

She had started with the more conventional method of attempting to disrupt me by making harassing phone calls and sending a flurry of emails. Then in a frightening turn, she located my home address and contacted me at home. At that point, I stopped all contact with her and this is what set her off on her internet campaign.

The point of this post is not to defend myself against the ravings of a clearly disturbed woman. Instead, it is to both provide some background to her comments as well to highlight how suspect much of the content on the net is.

There is a great deal of valuable information available on the internet, that is for sure. Indeed, the collection of links located to the right side of this page contain invaluable information that is essential to anyone dealing with real estate in NY. Additionally, Google is still the best way to locate background information quickly about someone. I recently had a client who was defrauded by a mortgage broker who collected $7,450.00 from him and subsequently did no work. Upon "Googling" his name, I discovered that my client was not his only victim. There was even a celebrity he had fleeced who had posted about him all over the net. I brought the rash of complaints to his attention and he soon refunded every penny my client had given him. Now, maybe it's his turn to post some foul things about me on the net?