Latest news with #Lieb
Yahoo
3 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Bishop Carroll grad receives Caulfield grant scholarship
JOHNSTOWN, Pa. – Madelyn Lieb, a recent Bishop Carroll Catholic High School graduate, used her application for the Thomas Caulfield Veterans Remembered Scholarship as a way to honor her late grandfather, Ralph Lieb. One of the requirements for the award is that the individual be a veteran or have a parent or grandparent who served in the military. Ralph Lieb spent time in the Army during the Vietnam War era. 'April of 2024, my pap was in an accident on our farm, which ended up leading to him passing away,' said Lieb, a Nicktown resident. 'I was one of the first ones who responded to the scene. I was there. I was able to get him help. I was one of the last people with him before he had to go to the hospital. And I was always super-close with him. So just being able to do something like this in his memory is super-special.' Lieb was awarded the $1,000 scholarship from among approximately 60 applicants. 'I'm getting a tremendous thrill and honor out of this because it's so important to have individuals like Madelyn receive this funding for this scholarship,' Caulfield, an Army veteran and president/CEO of Veteran Community Initiatives, said Tuesday. 'I know how expensive everything is and how it's needed.' Other criteria included academic records, extracurricular activities and a commitment to making a positive impact on the community. Lieb was involved in numerous activities at Bishop Carroll, including basketball, soccer, track, student ambassador program, pro-life club, student evangelizers, and Students Against Destructive Decisions. She plans to study business at St. Francis University.
New York Post
30-05-2025
- Business
- New York Post
NYC broker fee law — which protects tenants from costs — challenged by real estate agents in 11th-hour push
These agents are trying to broker a last-minute deal. New York City's real estate industry is making an 11th-hour bid to halt a new law that shifts the burden of costly broker fees away from renters before it takes effect next month. The Real Estate Board of New York, the city's powerful group of over 10,000 real estate professionals, filed a motion earlier this month seeking to put the Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses Act on pause until the court battle over the law plays out. Here's everything you need to now about the new rules — which will launch on June 11 unless a federal judge agrees to REBNY's motion. 3 New York City's real estate industry is making an 11th-hour bid to halt the new broker fee ban before it takes effect next month. BullRun – What is the Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses (FARE) Act? The FARE Act — passed in City Council with a veto-proof majority of 42-8 on Nov. 13 — prohibits agents representing property owners from charging prospective renters a 'broker fee.' It also requires that all fees a tenant owes be included in rental agreements and real estate listings. Proponents of the legislation say it will help ease the city's housing crisis by cutting down prohibitive up-front costs for tenants, including broker fees — which are typically about 15% of the annual cost of a rental unit, according to real estate website OpenIgloo. But critics of the law argue landlords may still sneak in broker fees onto tenants through higher monthly rents. Andrew Lieb, managing attorney of boutique real estate litigation law firm Lieb at Law, declares the Big Apple rental market will be 'forever changed' by the FARE Act. 'It will result in tenants losing access to housing from landlords who simply decide it's not worth it to be a landlord anymore,' Lieb told The Post. 'New York City is really making it impossible for a residential landlord to operate given the plethora of red tape that needs to be navigated just to sign a lease — and then enforcing that lease is a whole other disaster.' When do broker fees go away? Unless a federal judge rules otherwise, landlords will be barred from passing on the fee to a tenant after June 11, even if a lease was signed before the effective date, a rep from the Department of Consumer Protection confirmed to The Post. New York City is one of the few cities where landlords can hire a broker and pass the agent's fee onto a tenant. 3 The Real Estate Board of NY (REBNY) has taken the measure to file an 11th hour push in federal court to stop the city's new Fairness in Apartment Rental Expenses (FARE) Act from going into effect. New York landlord-tenant lawyer Altagracia B. Pierre Outerbridge expects the mandate to go into effect, and that a federal judge is 'probably not going to block the law' since the court hasn't yet issued a decision. 'The fact that a month has passed (and the law is going into effect in two weeks) without the Court doing anything suggests that it doesn't feel a huge rush to get involved,' Pierre Outerbridge told The Post. Does this mean that all broker fees are illegal? Landlords and tenants can still hire their own brokers under the FARE Act. But landlords can't shift the cost of a broker that is 'exclusively representing the landlord's interests' onto a tenant. This includes fees for brokers who publish listings with the landlord's permission. 'The FARE Act ensures transparency for tenants to not unfairly be burdened with additional costs by placing the responsibility for a broker's fees on the party that actually hired them,' the City Council said in a statement. What are real estate agents saying? In the lawsuit filed in December, REBNY attorneys claimed the city's 'profoundly misguided' legislation violated federal and state laws, including constitutional free speech and contract rights. 'The FARE Act is constitutionally flawed on multiple accounts. We are confident that the Courts will agree with us,' a REBNY rep told The Post. The New York State Association of Realtors further argues the law would drive up rental costs, strip away 'over half' of online rental listings and open the 'floodgates for baseless lawsuits and penalties against brokers.' 3 Last year, the FARE Act was passed in the City Council, which will prohibit agents representing property owners from charging prospective renters a 'broker fee.' J.C. Rice 'The landlords who still want to use a broker and are allowed to raise the rent to accommodate the shift in responsibility will do so,' Pierre Outerbridge said, adding that some tenants are 'going to be shocked to pay an extra month's rent in broker fees in order to sign their lease.' 'It will exacerbate rental unaffordability,' Violetta Weddepohl, a broker at Serhant, concurred. 'As a result, when leases come up for renewal in a year or two, tenants will face even steeper rent increases. 'I have sympathy for the argument that the broker should be paid by the person who hires them,' she said, 'but the reality is that the landlords can get away with charging higher rent.' But real estate listing website Streeteasy estimated the average cost to sign a lease on rentals that would have currently charged a broker fee will fall by 41.8% once the law takes effect. 'Rental properties that stopped charging tenants a broker fee in the past did not increase rents beyond broader market trends,' reads a December report from the site. 'The lock-in effect of high upfront costs made it easier for landlords to raise rents faster.' What are New York City residents saying? New Yorkers who spoke to The Post were largely in favor of the law taking effect, with nearly every local citing housing affordability as a major concern. 'This is great,' Betsy Laikin, a film producer, told The Post. 'The rents are higher than they've ever been. Why should we pay a broker fee, on top of these rents?' 'I think the broker fee … should not exist,' Luke Atkinson, a 39-year-old painter from Bushwick, Brooklyn, added. '[Brokerage] is a job that doesn't need to exist, and they know it deep down in their souls. 'That's why they're insecure,' he added. 'That's why they're always hustling because it's a job that doesn't need to exist.' Georgi Georgiev, a bartender from Bulgaria who now resides in Fort Greene, is less optimistic. 'One way or another, we are going to pay it if we are getting an apartment, no matter what. We're never gonna not pay,' Georgiev, 45, said. 'There is gonna be so many loopholes.' What happens if an apartment has a broker fee after the law is in effect? The city's Department of Consumer Protection will be enforcing the law after it goes into effect. It's estimated the agency will require about $500,000 in the next fiscal year for outreach and education related to the law, according to City Council records. Those caught in violation of the law will be subject to a $1,000 fine for the first violation and a $2,000 fine for each violation within a two-year period. To file a complaint regarding a FARE Act violation, consumers can visit or call 311 once the law is in effect.
Yahoo
08-04-2025
- Climate
- Yahoo
These Salt Lake City neighborhoods are most at risk for wildfires
Karl Lieb kept hearing the same question not long after a series of wildfires broke out around the Los Angeles area earlier this year. Combined, the fires only burned about 38,000 acres, a little larger than Utah's largest fire last year. However, given their location, the January fires were much more destructive than anything Utah has ever experienced. Twenty-nine people died and over 15,000 structures were destroyed, resulting in at least $28 billion in insured losses, according to Southern California Leadership Council estimates. Many estimate economic losses to be much higher as the city continues to rebuild. It left many watching from afar wondering: Could something like that ever happen here? "We've had a lot of questions ... over the last four months, honestly just asking us about the risk," said Lieb, Salt Lake City's fire chief. "Under the wrong circumstances, we could lose some structures in Salt Lake, but we are prepared for this and we do train for this." The wildfires highlight a real risk across many Western cities. They were eerily similar to a blaze near Boulder, Colorado, at the start of 2022, and another that destroyed Paradise, California, in 2018. Recent storms have helped lift most of Salt Lake County out of moderate drought for the first time in months, but it's not uncommon for it — like the rest of the state — to slip in and out of drought. And as this year's snowpack begins to melt, Salt Lake City is preparing for what could be an active fire season if the wrong conditions emerge over the next few months. Salt Lake City and Los Angeles do share many topographical similarities, including a flat basin, canyons and elevated spaces. When it comes to Utah's capital city, the Salt Lake City Fire Department lists the Salt Lake City Watershed/City Creek Canyon, along with the nearby North Cove Estates and East Capitol Boulevard areas, among its most vulnerable areas. Those locations aren't far from where last year's Sandhurst Fire began, leading to dozens of homes being temporarily evacuated as flames traveled across Hell Canyon. Many homes by the Upper Avenues and East Bench are also considered vulnerable. Homes above canyons are typically at the highest risk because fires like to travel up terrain, said Lieb, as he presented wildfire risk review findings to the Salt Lake City Council last week. "They superheat the fuel above them and it just draws the fire up, so all the homes (by) East Capitol and Northmont Way, on the other side of City Creek — those are probably the highest-risk areas," he said. "Those are the neighborhoods that we emphasize." However, elevated risk can also be found in other parts of the city. The department points out that there are many native and nonnative grass and brush species prone to wildfires when they dry out in the summer, especially near the Jordan River and other parts of the west side. Both Salt Lake City and Los Angeles can experience strong winds that fan flames, but Utah's winds are typically nothing like California's Santa Ana winds. The latter can last for days, which creates difficult firefighting conditions. There are also seasonal differences between the two, as well as road differences. "By the time people decided to get out, there was no room on those roads to get out," Lieb said of the recent California fires. "We have the benefit here to have multiple points of egress in most of our risk areas, and multiple points of access — and that's a big difference." With Utah's typical fire season about to get underway, he said the department has adopted some changes with the hope of preventing equally devastating wildfires. It created a new wildland-urban interface coordinator position to help train staff on the best wildland firefighting tactics while keeping its department staffed. Firefighters have also launched educational programs, which include going door-to-door in high-risk areas. This includes ensuring that people are prepared to evacuate quickly and orderly, on top of maintaining defensible spaces before any fires. City officials had previously voiced their concerns about what could happen locally after the California fires broke out in January. Fire risks have become a "365-day threat," Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall said earlier this year. Recent disasters also sparked some changes in Utah code this year. That includes HB48, which requires counties and cities to "adopt the wildland urban interface building code standards," among other things, to protect future homes. SB30 also puts Utah on track to join the Great Plains Interstate Fire Compact to help share firefighting resources with a growing number of states. 'I think what we're seeing, and what our firefighters are on the frontlines experiencing there is reshaping the way that we calculate our readiness for different disasters,' Mendenhall said.
