Many current and former residents of Stuyvesant Town/Peter Cooper
Village who are members of the “Roberts v. Tishman Speyer” class action
are getting less in damages than they were expecting. Specifically, over 5,000 of them have had non-payment deductions taken
out of their damages, as well as close to a third taken out for legal
fees and expenses, and in some cases, with money also taken out for
retroactive MCIs.
More at this link:
http://town-village.com/2014/06/18/many-roberts-tenants-getting-less-money-than-expected/
45 comments:
Tenants will get “refunds equaling at least 100 percent and, most likely up to 110 percent, of their overcharges,” said Daniel Kasner, an attorney for the plaintiffs, in the release, adding that most or all of the attorneys’ fees are slated to be paid from excess funds.
Two Stuy Town residents previously asked a judge to block the settlement, citing high legal fees and the fact that some residents would receive only $150 from the deal.
http://therealdeal.com/blog/2013/04/10/stuy-town-tenant-settlement-okd-by-court/
There was more than a bit of bristling, however, over the high legal fees, which, at 30 percent of the damages, amount to nearly $20 million. Lawyers and their staff members charged as much as $890 per hour, according to Real Estate Weekly, and the judge joked that he's not even sure he makes $100 an hour.
http://ny.curbed.com/archives/2013/04/10/hard_numbers_revealed_as_stuy_town_settlement_approved.php
I posted a few press items on the legal fees.
Hard to believe we have to pay such high legal fees ($890 per hour?!)
Harder to believe we pay legal fees and they did not protect the pool of money. CW should not have been allowed to remove nonpayment amounts from the pool. They should have had to use proper channels for that pursuing each matter individually. The lawyers are not supposed to give favoritism to CW. They are supposed to protect the pool of money and distribute to us, their clients. They had no right to allow CW to take nonpayment amounts. Before anyone yells at me - I did not have nonpayment amounts taken from my payment. I just think the act of allowing CW to do that was wrong on many levels.
I'm a non-Roberts guy who's been reading the comments on the thread about this on the TA FB page. For some not explained reason, the Roberts claimants got separated into 2 pools, former tenants and current tenants. There was excess funding in the former tenants pool, and not enough in the current tenants pool. So the former tenants got their full 110% of damages while current tenants got only 66%. There is some discussion there about the possibility that even after the 110% payouts to the former tenants there may have been money left over in the former tenants fund - that leftover money would go back to CWCap - and if that money might be recoverable and distributed to current tenants.
My overall impression is that CWCap plays very rough and their attorneys are very smart and knew how to rig the system. Not sure if the tenants attorney got played or played along, but at least he says he will rep those who got shorted and want to challenge that.
12 21 be ready for more of CW smart lawyers rigging the future of our homes. more McIs no doubt and apparently new leases for current tenants with unstable rents and additional monthly fees.
Not a part of the ClassAct suit, but did all the members get sued? Did anyone get more than $200 ? Dfs on our floor claim to have received almost $5k.
???
Although I'm glad that the Roberts decision turned out to be the final nail in Tishman Speyer's coffin, I have a hard time sympathizing with folks that willingly signed market rate leases, and are now demanding payback.
Families spent years on Met's waiting list, only to see the line jumped by newcomers waving fistfuls of cash in the leasing office.
They knew what they were getting into, so this isn't justice, it's a windfall.
What happens when you over build? Over leverage? Over price? Over commercialize? Presents itself as luxury but without competitive luxury standards? A Mayor who says build more build higher and a Governor who says casinos casinos we need casinos!
The Future - Bankruptcy?
http://nypost.com/2014/06/19/revel-casino-warns-it-will-shutter-without-buyer/
http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2014/06/revel_casino_warns_it_will_close_if_buyer_cant_be_found.html
Well, 8:25. With that attitude, I hope CW finds a way to evict you and turn your apartment market. You don't belong here anymore. We all have to live somewhere and when we moved in, these apartments were still slightly below market and more apartment for the money. We weren't waiving fistfuls of cash, we were looking for a place to live. They were still more affordable than much of Manhattan, though not anymore.
8:25 pm - says the guy who wants the majority of the tenants to pay for everything here. We moved in in 2001. Not a cheap rent, the list never came through. Comments are typical of why MR hate you and CW will be banging you for every other MCI in the making.
"Well, 8:25. With that attitude, I hope CW finds a way to evict you and turn your apartment market. You don't belong here anymore. We all have to live somewhere and when we moved in, these apartments were still slightly below market and more apartment for the money. We weren't waiving fistfuls of cash, we were looking for a place to live. They were still more affordable than much of Manhattan, though not anymore."
I'm not 8:25, but I do think YOUR attitude is malicious. What 8:25 said is accurate (maybe the "fists full of cash" was being a bit dramatic). You knew you were signing an open market lease, and you certainly didn't wait the years that I waited for my apt. Maybe you should be more grateful for the time you had when the lease "was slightly below market". At any rate, what 8:25 said is pretty accurate. I also didn't notice 8:25 mention that he/she was hoping for your eviction.
It just seems to be there no depth of despair that this management will not go. There is a special place in hell for these social criminals, one can only hope that the Devil's management has a sense of humor upon their arrival in hell.
June 19, 2014 at 8:25 PM
and
June 20, 2014 at 6:37 AM
The two of you cut it out.
Market rate? In THIS place? If you are paying this you are REALLY throwing your money away and getting ripped off. Excuse me, but I am laughing soo hard right now.
Please, someone put a pin in this balloon.
They are not only trying to find ways to evict us, they are succeeding. Better go take that wall down now.
Look, most of the RS people have been fighting for everyone, both the MR and the RS. We try to get the MR residents to confirm their increases and to file overcharge complaints for anything illegal.
The turning of RS apartments to MR hurts us all.
So 6:37 please don't wish anyone evicted. And 8:25 no one should be ripped off or cheated out of money especially by those who have a lot of money and are only seeking to make their great money fortunes greater.
No one deserves to be evicted.
No one deserves to be cheated out of money.
Our Roberts check has $925 taken out in MCI fees.
What a crafty bunch of lawyers our LL has. Why is it we , and the TA, never have same crafty lawyers....
Forgive me, but please explain in laymen's terms why Roberts was split into those who
live here
and those who don't.
Why, what's the difference and didn't everyone still get a decent refund if they had an apartment that was renovated? thank you.
for pete's sake the MR are not carrying this place! We ran without MR for over 50 years and ran better than we are today! This place, this community is a mess because of the deregulated apartments that are MR. And there are very little MR apartments occupied by permanent residents. The majority of MR apartments are NYU contracted. So anyone dumb enough to say MR supports us is really saying NYU supports PCVST.
2:14 "our" lawyers claim to be the best in their field. If they aren't as crafty or successful in our favor it is by choice.
7: 10 PM - I'm not MR, but um, they do pay the bills here.
The lie that our lawyers tell; that somehow the higher than anticipated participation resulted in an underfunded pool, doesn't pass the smell test. As I understand it, the law requires that class action pools be calculated to presume 100% participation. Someone is guilty of gross incompetence or corruption in this "surprise".
8:59 I am MR and we do not pay the bills here. Decades of STPCV being rent stabilized prove RS fully capable paying the bills here.
You are saying MR pay the over inflated MetLife to Tishman sale price. That is not the bills. This place ran fine and better before the Tishman sale. Now that CW increased the operational costs while claiming they are decreased by fabricating numbers there will be another huge hit coming on operation costs when a real owner takes the helm.
No, MR tenants don't pay the bills here, they pay the DEBT SERVICE incurred when Met walked away with 5.4 billion dollars. Absent that debt, the complex turns a very nice profit, always did. You can't blame RS tenants for Met's rapacious greed. As other posters have made note, ST/PCV did just fine without "luxury living".
I am re-posting someone else's comment because it bears repeating until everyone is fully aware of this and everything like this that goes on here.
The lie that our lawyers tell; that somehow the higher than anticipated participation resulted in an underfunded pool, doesn't pass the smell test. As I understand it, the law requires that class action pools be calculated to presume 100% participation. Someone is guilty of gross incompetence or corruption in this "surprise".
June 21, 2014 at 12:08 AM
Chapter 8 of Bagli's Book Other's People's Money, read the first two pages.
Issue: Environmental Indemnification "Toxic Town"
Tishman "Not planning digging deep holes that might disturb coal tar" indemnified MetLife.
Current and future owners liable.
Excavation of deep holes in Oval, First Ave Loop and throughout Property with tons of soil removed by dump trucks.
Contaminated debris from construction with toxic asbestos, banned pesticides, carcinogens, petroleum contaminates, metals, in the news out East on Long Island.
Where was Stuyvesant Town soil dumped?
Tomato Tomatoe. The old timers here with the old leases keep bringing up the past. When milk was 45 cents and gas was $1.22. The past is over. Your precious MetLife sold you up the river and back and the price of Manhattan aint going back down. So please refrain from telling us all how well the place was run, how Met Life ran it in 1972 and did not lose money.
There is NO WAY the new management office building is by definition a "cellar extension" IT IS HUGE! Just saw it today. How did they get this through without paying off some greasy palms!
"Tomato Tomatoe. The old timers here with the old leases keep bringing up the past. When milk was 45 cents and gas was $1.22. The past is over. Your precious MetLife sold you up the river and back and the price of Manhattan aint going back down. So please refrain from telling us all how well the place was run, how Met Life ran it in 1972 and did not lose money."
last I checked I'm still paying a real R/S rent, so how exactly did MET sell me down the river?
You're paying how much for YOUR apt?
June 21, 2014 at 11:23 AM
I asked about that at the meeting and that has been discussed here before. The area where the management office is going in is not contaminated according to the city and Con Ed. There were three locations for gas storage: (1) at E 17th St between E 17th and E 18th Sts just to the west of Ave C; (2) at E 19th St east of where Ave A was; (3) between E 14th St and the south side of E 16th St from Ave C to the west side of where the FDR Drive is now.
11:53 AM: You are totally missing the point. MetLife didn't have the crushing debt which is what the MR tenants are paying off. They created that debt by selling the property at a grossly inflated price to the cretinous Speyer and his partners. They DID turn a profit before the sale when they were renting to RS only. It's not the RS tenants' fault that they sold us up the river, etc., and it's not the MR tenants' fault, either.
7 - 29 It is not missing the point. Th point poster is trying to make is that there IS NOT GOING BACK. YOU CAN'T TAKE THE MONEY BACK FROM Met Life who is LOl @ the bank. We're all in the boat of debt. So who will pony up?
6:10 the ground at First Ave Loop was contaminated. The construction debris that was trucked away was contaminated. Those are facts.
Are you blaming Met Life for accepting the highest bid?
7:29 you are exactly right.
8:23. Such a simple minded question. Quite sure no one blaming anyone EVER FOR TAKING HIGHEST bid.
So goes Tishman, CWCapital , you , me , your granny and we'll all have to pay the price for the current and present real estate fiasco. Plus a few added extras and taxes.
Do tenants alert the BBB of the billing practices here? Scummy group- wish I could tell all those coming in.
I really do not enjoy living here anymore.
last I checked I'm still paying a real R/S rent, so how exactly did MET sell me down the river?
You're paying how much for YOUR apt?
LOL. Exactly. I pay less than you and each of your 5 or 6 roommates pays, so how did Met screw me???
Honestly no point in having a lease here. The leases are full of holes, illegal fees and at any point in time, are increased long before renewal.
2 :08 Not for long old friend.
signed - also a real R/S tenant
"2 :08 Not for long old friend.
signed - also a real R/S tenant"
Rent stabilization isn't going anywhere.
RS may be here for a bit longer, but the LL of nYc have found out how to raise us anyway!
LOLLLL more mci s folks more and more and more... You honestly think CWC is stupid?
I think (Hope it's ok to post this) STR needs even more exposure and readers. The outside world knows nothing about what's going on here. I believe almost everything typed on STR to be true as I've been living here a while and know the facts. Get the word out. Get the thousands of tenants and the future tenants to read this board and others. Yelp is not reliable as they do not post al the complaints.
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