Two non-profit housing organizations have teamed up to transform foreclosed and abandoned homes into affordable housing. Habitat for Humanity, which has built more than 350,000 houses for impoverished families worldwide since its founding in 1976, and National Community Stabilization Trust, a federally sponsored initiative that revitalizes neighborhoods badly damaged by the foreclosure crisis, will partner for two years to purchase and rehabilitate the “REOs” or real estate owned properties. The homes will be purchased from participating lenders, including Bank of America, Chase Bank, Citibank, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, through funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, [more]

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A fund that won a $3.9 million judgment in September against embattled developer Kent Swig is seeking to enforce its priority claim on certain of Swig’s assets, and prevent competing creditors who are owed a total of nearly $50 million from getting to them first.

The fund, affiliated with Midtown-based investment firm RCG Longview, sued Swig as an individual, as well as five of his creditors, to force a turnover of eight assets to repay a $3.9 million debt, a petition filed Jan. 7 in New York State Supreme Court says. In the same filing, the fund alternately asked the court to turn the assets over to a sheriff or put them in the hands of a receiver.

But a main goal of the suit was to make sure the other five creditors did not get their hands on the assets before the fund named RCG LV Debt IV Non-REIT Asset Holdings, did. The attached chart includes lenders and other creditors who have won court judgments against him. [more]

From left: Kent Swig, 212 Eighth Avenue, 406 East 63rd Street (Building photos source: PropertyShark)

Lending giant Citibank increased the financial pressure on embattled
developer Kent Swig in recent court filings by seeking his shares in
two modest properties in Chelsea and the Upper East Side in order to
repay a debt of more than $5 million.
The bank wants Swig’s 50 percent interest in a three- and four-story
mixed-use property at 212 Eighth Avenue at 21st Street in Chelsea (the
first floor of which is home to the popular gay bar Rawhide) and a 20
percent interest in a five-story rental building with ground-floor
retail, at 406 East 63rd Street, between York and First avenues, the
two actions filed in New York State Supreme Court Nov. 25 say. The lender, which declined to comment, filed the papers as a follow up
to its July 2009 lawsuit that sought to recover money lent on an
unsecured line of credit to the developer in 2006. In April this year,
the bank declared that loan in default, and on Oct. 13, a New York
State Supreme Court judge issued a judgment that Swig owed the bank
$5.1 million. [more]

Serena Boardman (Photo credit: Patrick McMullan)

From the December issue: It’s 2005, and golden-haired socialite
Serena Boardman is sunning herself on a yacht near the coast of
Sardinia in Italy. Nearby, her friend Dori Cooperman — now best known
for befriending actress Lindsay Lohan in rehab — is on the phone with
a reporter from W Magazine, chronicling the addictive qualities of
photo Web site PatrickMcMullan.com. Boardman interjects with her
opinion of the site, which documents the social lives of New York
City’s glitterati. “Tell him it captures a moment,” she shouts. Until
recently, the scene was typical for the 39-year-old Boardman, the
jet-setting heiress to a banking fortune whose stepmother is a European
princess. Along with society pals like Alexandra von Fürstenberg and Blaine Trump, Boardman spent her 20s being photographed in couture gowns at galas and benefits all over New York and Palm Beach, often with her equally glamorous sister, Samantha. Magazines chronicled her taste in clothes (Roberto Cavalli ruffled cocktail dresses) and jewelry (Verdura). She held jobs at the Web site Luxuryfinder.com and in the jewelry department at Sotheby’s. But to the media they were a postscript to Boardman’s glamorous social life. So it comes as a surprise to those who know Boardman that only a few years later, she’s morphed into one of the most successful real estate brokers in the business. [more]

A New York State Supreme Court granted a $28.4 million judgment Friday
against developer Kent Swig after he defaulted on a personal loan from
a real estate investment firm led by investor Jeffrey Citrin for the
Sheffield57 condominium conversion. The case involved a $21.15 million personal loan that Swig took out in
July 2007 from the lender, Square Mile Structured Debt, to help fund
the conversion of Sheffield57, a luxury apartment building at 322 West
57th Street, which his company was converting from a rental tower. Swig had promised to convert the loan into an equity stake in
Sheffield57, but did not get an agreement from his lenders. Judge
Bernard Fried ruled that because it was a personal loan, Swig was still
on the hook for the money. “Furthermore, contrary to the defendant Swig’s assertion, the loan
agreement and note are instruments for the payment of money only,”
Fried wrote in his ruling. “This case does not involve a complex
financial transaction. The loan agreement establishes a discreet
obligation, and the note was, by its express terms, an absolute,
unconditional promise of payment by Swig.” [more]

Kent Swig

Citibank claims developer Kent Swig owes it $5 million from a defaulted
personal loan; a contractor filed suit against Joseph Moinian’s
development company for unpaid work; and embattled Bronx landlord
Ocelot Capital Group claims a former company official sold its secrets. Click here for the full story. [more]