Buyers at New Condo Complex Hope Loophole Lets Them Leave
by Avi - July 28, 2009 at 12:00 am -
The Rushmore, a shiny new riverside condominium complex on 64th Street and Riverside Boulevard, is in the middle of a legal brawl over one digit in a 732-page legal document that could cost the owners millions of dollars.
A New York Times article details the controversy, which pits 23 buyers against the owners, the Extell Development Company and the Carlyle Group. Since the market turned, buyers who entered contracts shortly before the housing bubble popped have been trying to get their 15% deposits back or renegotiate the prices. Now someone has found an error in the condo offering plan that could help the buyers get out.
The offering plan gave buyers an opportunity to back out if no units closed before Sept. 1, 2008 (the first unit closed in February 2009, the Times says). The problem is that the lawyers should have written Sept. 1, 2009, Extell says, and the mistake — replacing the 9 in 2009 with an 8 — is basically a clerical error that shouldn’t allow the buyers to get out of their contracts. Nonetheless, a lawyer for the buyers is asking the state Attorney General to let them out. Lawyers interviewed by the Times had mixed opinions of which side is most likely to win.
Interested in buying into the “resort-like lifestyle” at the Rushmore? There are still units available, from a $1 million one-bedroom to a $7.45 million five bedroom. (photo via Corcoran)
Attack of the Fine Print (New York Times)
[...] decision hinged on a detail (we first wrote about it here) in the condo offering plan that the owners now say was a typo — the plan said the sales must [...]