Rabbi Pinto and 450 East 83rd Street (credit: PropertyShark)

Developer Ben Zion Suky and the wife of Rabbi Yoshiyahu Yosef Pinto are facing a new set of legal woes as the Bank of New York filed a lawsuit Tuesday to foreclose on their $769,000 mortgage for an Upper East Side apartment.

In the suit, filed in New York state Supreme Court, Bank of New York alleges that Suky, a principal at Livorno Partners, and Debora Rivka Pinto, defaulted on a mortgage loan at the Cielo, a condo at 450 East 83rd Street and York Avenue. Sources say there is a tenant living in the apartment. [more]

Buying and selling loans on distressed properties has become a thriving business in New York’s commercial real estate market. While statistics aren’t available on the volume of distressed real estate loan sales, industry officials say they’re on the rise, the Wall Street Journal reported. The latest example of this is a partnership of California investors who bought a stalled Brooklyn Heights condominium development at 20 Henry Street and is restarting construction after nearly two years of inactivity. Developer Urban Realty Partners defaulted on its loan from Bank of New York and the project’s equity partner, American International Group, collapsed during the financial crisis, sources said. Now a partnership, known as the Canyon-Johnson Urban Fund, bought the loan and took control by cutting a deal with Urban Realty and AIG Bank of New York sold the note at a roughly 25 percent discount to the unpaid loan balance. “During the past three months, activity has become more frenzied,” said David Schechtman, a principal at Eastern Consolidated who brokered the transaction. “Prices have come down but buyers are no longer demanding fire-sale prices.” [Wall Street Journal]

[more]

In their first official response to the bankruptcy filing of 20 Bayard, lawyers for W Financial Fund last week urged a U.S. Bankruptcy Court judge to reject a motion by developer Isaac Hager to continue operating the Williamsburg condominium with monthly rent and parking fees. Hager, president of North Development Group, threw the 64-unit condo into bankruptcy last month, when he was unable to make a $170,000 interest payment to W Financial, or refinance a $17.4 million bridge loan. In a Dec. 9 filing, Martin Ehrenfeld, restructuring officer for the developer, asked permission to use the rent and parking fees to cover monthly maintenance charges for at least 120 days until a reorganization plan is worked out with creditors. After selling 24 apartments before the real estate market collapsed in 2008, Hager rented out nearly all of the remaining units until the condo market recovered. According to the court documents, 20 Bayard has $1.28 million in net operating income per year. [more]

The former chairman and CEO of the Bank of New York has landed a new
pad. Thomas Renyi and his wife have closed on a three-bedroom co-op
apartment at 920 Fifth Avenue between 72nd and 73rd streets for $7.55
million. When the unit first hit the market in April 2008, the asking
price was $2.55 million more, Cityfile reported.