Kucker, Marino, Winiarsky, & Bittens, LLP represented the seller of an 8,000 sq. ft. house located in Southampton. The waterfront property contains 8 bedrooms, 7 bathrooms, an infinity pool, a guesthouse, and a private beach. KMWB provided legal representation to the seller throughout the entirety of the $5,000,000.00 transaction.
Kucker, Marino, Winiarsky, & Bittens, LLP represented the seller of a 30,000 sq. ft. property located on East 16th Street in Manhattan. Built in 1900, the property is located between Fifth Avenue and Union Square West. The 7-story building consists of 15 residential units and 1 commercial space occupying the ground floor. KMWB provided legal representation to the seller throughout all aspects of the $30,000,000.00 transaction.
Kucker, Marino, Winiarsky, & Bittens, LLP is excited to announce the release of its very own mobile application, the KMWB Rent Calculator. The KMWB Rent Calculator, a tool designed specifically for KMWB’s clients, enables users to calculate legal regulated rents at the click of a button!
Andrew Bittens, a partner at Kucker, Marino, Winiarsky, & Bittens, LLP, won a motion for discovery, and payment of use and occupancy in Missionary Sisters, Inc. c/o Halstead Mgmt. Co., LLC. v. Maureen Kenney and Laura Murphy, a non-primary residence holdover proceeding as well as defeating the tenants’ cross-motion to dismiss the proceeding.
Andrew Bittens, a partner at Kucker, Marino, Winiarsky, & Bittens, LLP, was granted both a motion to restore, and a motion for summary judgment in Moonbeams, Inv. v. Ryme Katkhouda. After the Department of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) determined that the apartment was exempt from Rent Stabilization, the holdover proceeding was restored to the Court’s calendar to determine a motion for summary judgment, in which Andrew Bittens successfully argued for possession of the unregulated premises.
Nativ Winiarsky, a partner at Kucker, Marino, Winiarsky, & Bittens, LLP, saved a client hundreds of thousands of dollars and successfully demonstrated that a brokerage firm is not always entitled to a claimed sales commission. In Miron Properties, LLC v Eberli the Court ruled that the Commission Agreement did not clearly provide an exclusive brokerage and that since the broker did not significantly contribute meaningfully to the transaction and that the defendant was not as the broker claimed an agent of the daughter’s company, the actual purchaser.
Kucker and Bruh, LLP won a defamation action on behalf of a fellow attorney, the court appointed Receiver in the matter of Village Realty Holdings, Inc. v. 135 West 13, LLC et al. The case commenced when a holdover tenant in the subject building contacted the Better Business Bureau and the Departmental Disciplinary Committee in an effort to coerce the Receiver to act in violation of her duties. In addition, the tenant wrote slanderous reviews about the Receiver on a popular website offering attorney ratings, reviews and disciplinary records. Among other inaccuracies, the disgruntled tenant alleged that the Receiver’s role as the court appointed Receiver to the apartment building constituted an attorney client relationship between the Receiver and the tenant, even after being made fully aware and knowing that no such relationship ever existed.
In the matter of Dixon v. 105 West 75th Street LLC, et al., Robert H. Berman, of Kucker, Marino, Winiarsky, & Bittens, LLP, successfully defeated a tenant’s claim to a declaratory judgment, injunctive relief, lease reformation, rent overcharge, fraud and attorney fees.
In Dixon, the plaintiff alleged that his apartment was still subject to the Rent Stabilization Law due to a failure to properly deregulate the apartment from rent stabilization regulations coverage.
In the matter of Harleysville Insurance Co. a/s/o Ralph Kroner and Ralph H. Kroner v. Kaufman Management, Company LLC et al., Gregg R. Kurlander, of Kucker, Marino, Winiarsky, & Bittens, LLP, successfully argued a conversion claim that led to a jury award of $2,286.83 in favor of the plaintiff.
Every year hundreds of children living in poverty return to school ill equipped to strive in an academic environment. Kucker, Marino, Winiarsky, & Bittens, LLP believes that the key to success is preparation, and that providing these students with the supplies to succeed will help to prepare them both inside and outside of the classroom.
The law firm of Kucker, Marino, Winiarsky, & Bittens, LLP successfully defeated a claim posed by two wealthy New York City tenants that the court should reverse prior orders from the Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR) which had luxury deregulated their apartments.
In the matter of Dixon v. 105 West 75th Street LLC, et al., Robert H. Berman, of Kucker, Marino, Winiarsky, & Bittens, LLP, successfully defeated a tenants claim that his apartment was subject to the Rent Stabilization Law. In a decision dated April 13, 2015, Justice Manuel J. Mendez granted the Defendants pre-Answer motion to dismiss the Complaint based upon documentary evidence. The Plaintiff tenant commenced the action seeking, inter alia, a declaration that he was a rent stabilized tenant. Prior to the tenant taking occupancy the owner added a roof top addition to the building, creating two duplex apartments out of the top floor units.
On December 9, 2014, James R. Marino served as a member of the presenting panel at the seminar conducted by the Community Housing Improvement Program (“CHIP”) titled “Primer on New York State Division of Housing and Community Renewal: Forms, Filings, and Policy Updates”. Mr. Marino spoke for 40 minutes on various topics, including Preferential Rents and Rent Calculations under different circumstances. Jim took questions from the attendants and received positive feedback from the participants.
Kucker, Marino, Winiarsky, & Bittens LLP is proud to recognize that partner Nativ Winiarsky authored an article that was published in the New York Law Journal on July 16, 2014 titled “Attorney Fees and Real Estate: Discretion Has Its Limits.”
On April 11, 2003, in 320 West 13th Realty LLC v. Avanade Inc., 03 CV 1579 (JSR) (S.D.N.Y.), a federal district court rendered an important decision concerning motions to remand pursuant to 28 U.S.C. §1447(c), the absence of complete diversity among the parties and the avoidance of duplicative litigation. The civil action began as a multi-million dollar commercial dispute between two plaintiffs, a New York limited liability company and a New York corporation, both represented by Kucker, Marino, Winiarsky, & Bittens, LLP (Kucker, Marino, Winiarsky, & Bittens), against defendant Avanade Inc., a Washington state corporation. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Rakoff, J.), ruled that the action must be returned to New York state court, as requested by Kucker, Marino, Winiarsky, & Bittens’s 28 U.S.C. §1447(c) motion for remand. In ruling for plaintiffs, the court agreed with Kucker, Marino, Winiarsky, & Bittens that Avanade’s joinder of a third-party defendant, Wolf Shevack, Inc., a New York corporation, under circumstances which compelled plaintiffs to raise their own third-party claims against WSI, made the third-party defendant a necessary party under Fed. Rule Civ. P. 19. Because the federal court did not have diversity jurisdiction to entertain plaintiffs’ third-party claims against WSI, the only court in which all of the parties’ claims and counterclaims could be heard was the New York state court. A remand order was issued, returning the action to state court.