Broker’s fees are increasingly falling back into the hands of renters, according to the Wall Street Journal, with at least three major Manhattan landlords ending their recession policies of picking up the tab out of desperation to fill their empty units. Ogden CAP Properties, which owns Normandie Court on East 95th Street and One Lincoln Plaza on West 64th Street, said it would stop paying the fees, which usually amount to one month’s rent, in those buildings. The rental arm of the Related Companies, which has around 5,000 apartment units in the city, and large apartment owner Pan Am Equities each plan to stop covering broker’s fees at the end of the month in response to better-than-expected vacancy rates and an overall strengthening of the market. [WSJ]

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Broker’s fees are increasingly falling back into the hands of renters, according to the Wall Street Journal, with at least three major Manhattan landlords ending their recession policies of picking up the tab out of desperation to fill their empty units. Ogden CAP Properties, which owns Normandie Court on East 95th Street and One Lincoln Plaza on West 64th Street, said it would stop paying the fees, which usually amount to one month’s rent, in those buildings. The rental arm of the Related Companies, which has around 5,000 apartment units in the city, and large apartment owner Pan Am Equities each plan to stop covering broker’s fees at the end of the month in response to better-than-expected vacancy rates and an overall strengthening of the market. [WSJ]

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Howard Milstein is the head of Milstein Properties.

From the February issue: On a winter afternoon last month, sunshine streamed through the windows on the 33rd story of 30 Lincoln Plaza, illuminating the cleaning supplies and paint cans that occupy the high-ceilinged space. Innocuous though it may seem, this out-of-the-way spot is at the center of a bitter dispute now raging between the building”s tenants and the developer, the Milstein real estate family. In their quest to prevent the Milsteins from converting the rental building into condos, tenants have filed a lawsuit claiming that when 30 Lincoln Plaza was constructed three decades ago, the developer ignored city permits and added an illegal extra floor — the 33rd. Litigation is nothing new for the Milsteins. They are one of the city’s oldest and most successful real estate families, but also among the most controversial.  [more]