An Attorney’s Guide to Internet Resources in

Real Property Transactions and Litigation

Adam Leitman Bailey, Esq and Colin Kaufman, Esq.

Adam Leitman Bailey, P.C.

____________________________________________________________________ 26 Broadway, 21st Floor, New York, NY 10004 ●T (212) 825-0365 F (212) 825-0999

www.alblawfirm.com

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Adam Leitman Bailey, Esq. Colin E. Kaufman, Esq. Adam Leitman Bailey P.C. 26 Broadway, 21st Floor New York, NY 10004 Tel: 212-825-0365 Fax: 212-825-0999 www.alblawfirm.com

An Attorney’s Guide to Internet Resources

in Real Property Transactions and Litigation

By Adam Leitman Bailey, Esq and Colin Kaufman, Esq.

Use of the internet is a necessity for today’s property lawyer, investor or manager. While it does not replace traditional research skills, the internet and the resources available on it permit a speed and breadth of research unimaginable just a few years ago. A hyperlinked copy of the outline below will be posted on our website at http://www.alblawfirm.com/ CAVEAT: Most, but not all of the websites listed here are used by us in our practice. However, since we have no control over their content, we take no responsibility for their accuracy or currency of information. All links are good as of November 21, 2006. Basic Internet Tools to Find Anything About Everything On the Internet 1. Internet Connection

a) Four components: i) Computer

(1) Speed v. storage v. RAM (2) convenience v cost v power

ii) Operating System (1) e.g. Windows (many flavors), Linux, Sparc

iii) Line (1) dial up (2) DSL (3) T-1 (4) fiberoptic, dish, etc

iv) browser – a software application which permits the user to interact graphically with the web (1) Most popular: Internet Explorer (2) most versatile: (IMHO) Mozilla (3) may need/want more than one (Netscape, Opera, Firefox, AOL Explorer,

Apple Safari ) (a) http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/default.asp (b) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_web_browsers

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2. Basic Tools

a) Search engines i) E.g. Google http://www.google.com (by far the most popular and usually the

most useful), Yahoo http://www.yahoo.com/, http://www.ask.com/ , Windows Live http://www.live.com/ , Lycos http://www.lycos.com/ , Clusty http://clusty.com/ (for more, see http://searchenginewatch.com/),

b) Meta-search

i) E.g. Dogpile http://www.dogpile.com/ , Webcrawler http://www.webcrawler.com/ , metacrawler http://www.metacrawler.com/ , surfwax http://www.surfwax.com/index.html , search.com http://www.search.com/

ii) New and interesting: goshme.com refers searcher to specialized search engines http://goshme.com/

iii) One of the best, (I think) is A9 http://a9.com/ , which allows a single search for web, books, images

c) General “drill-down” databases a/k/a directories

i) E.g. About.com http://about.com/, Yahoo Directory http://dir.yahoo.com/, The Open Directory Project http://dmoz.org/

d) Specific topical databases (many not indexed by spiderbots from the search

engines) i) E.g. New York State Corporate Listings

http://appsext5.dos.state.ny.us/corp_public/corpsearch.entity_search_entry , ii) NYS Professional Licenses http://www.op.nysed.gov/opsearches.htm , iii) New York City Administrative Decisions

http://www.citylaw.org/cityadmin.php 3. Using Search Engines

a) Search strategy i) Where do you want to end up

(1) Searching for general information about an area/topic/person (2) searching for specific information (3) seeking to confirm

ii) What particular search areas do you want to query (1) General v. specific

iii) Query language(s) (1) Go to “Help” (2) Always use “Advanced Search” until you are familiar with the search

engine

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iv) Refining or expanding your query

(1) Add or subtract terms (2) Alternate spellings (3) Other search engines (4) Specialized searches

b) Maximizing internet searches, i) Query Construction

(1) structure (2) choice of words (3) stemming (4) quotes

ii) Pay attention to the supported grammar of the engines (1) operators (2) advanced v basic search

Due Diligence on a Property 1. Due Diligence: Navigating the Internet to Locate and Learn About Property

a) Finding investment properties i) Using the internet to find property

(1) establish criteria (a) geographic location

(i) neighborhood (b) last sale price (c) comparables (d) zoning

ii) Online News

(1) More General (a) NY Times Real Estate http://www.nytimes.com/pages/realestate/ (b) NY Post Real Estate http://www.nypost.com/realestate/ (c) NY Sun Real Estate http://www.nysun.com/section/22

(2) Real Estate Oriented (a) The Real Deal http://www.therealdeal.net/ (b) StreetEasy http://www.streeteasy.com/ (c) Costar Group NYC Commerical Real Estate News

http://www.costar.com/News/Default.aspx?market=NYC (d) Wall Street Journal, Real Estate Journal

http://www.realestatejournal.com/ (e) NY Observer Real Estate http://therealestate.observer.com/ and

http://www.observer.com/20060508/subtoc_financeproperty.asp (f) The Cooperator http://www.cooperator.com/index.shtml (g) New YorK Magazine Real Estate

http://www.newyorkmetro.com/realestate/index.html

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(3) Buildings and facilities (a) Today’s Facility Manager

http://www.todaysfacilitymanager.com/default.php (b) Buildings.com http://www.buildings.com/default.asp

iii) Blogs (Web logs)

(1) find at http://www.technorati.com/ (2) http://www.curbed.com/ (3) http://propertygrunt.blogspot.com/ (4) http://matrix.millersamuel.com/

iv) RE Searches (1) every broker (2) Citifeet:

http://www.cityfeet.com/NewYorkCommercialRealEstateLocal/NewYorkCommercialRealEstate.aspx?PartnerPath=&

v) NYC Lien Sale Notices http://www.nyc.gov/html/dof/html/property/property_bill_taxlien.shtml#notices

vi) Business Improvement Districts (1) 125th Street: http://125thstreetbid.com/ (2) Columbus Avenue http://www.columbusavenuebid.org/home.html (3) Grand Central http://www.grandcentralpartnership.org/home.asp (4) Times Square: http://www.timessquarenyc.org/ (5) Downtown Alliance: http://www.downtownny.com/ (6) Lower East Side: http://www.lowereastsideny.com/ (7) Full listing of BID’s:

http://www.newyorkbusiness.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061016/STATIC/61116014&SearchID=73263648620356or

(8) http://www.nyc.gov/html/sbs/html/bid.html

Decisional law 1. Lexis http://www.lexis.com/ (subscription),

http://www.lexisone.com/caselaw/freecaselaw?action=FCLDisplayCaseSearchForm (free but very limited)

2. Westlaw http://web2.westlaw.com/ (subscription) 3. Findlaw http://lawcrawler.findlaw.com/ , Hieros Gamos http://www.hg.org/

and http://www.hg.org/redir.asp?url=http://www.lexisone.com/legalresearch/legalguide/states/new_york.htm

4. OCA online search (Supreme Civil and some Supreme Criminal) http://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/webcivil/FCASJcaptcha

5. More extensive “electronic case files” for New York County (SCROLL) http://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/iscroll/jcaptcha

6. New York Official Reports (Court of Appeals, Appellate Divisions, some trial court decisions)

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http://government.westlaw.com/nyofficial/search/default.asp?tempinfo=SEARCH

7. Great general legal source http://www.llrx.com/ 8. American Law Sources online

http://www.lawsource.com/also/usa.cgi?ny#Z7Q 9. Statutes and Regulations

i) NYS laws http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/menugetf.cgi?COMMONQUERY=LAWS

ii) NYC Building Code http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/html/reference/code_internet.shtml and updates http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/html/reference/code_update06.shtml

iii) NYC Electrical Code http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/html/model/nec.shtml

iv) NYC Index (by Topic) to Selected Department of Building Directives, Memoranda, Policy & Procedure Notices and Interpretations

1. http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/html/reference/a-index.shtml

v) Rent Stabilization Code http://www.dhcr.state.ny.us/ora/pubs/html/rentcode.htm

vi) Emergency Tenant Protection Regulations http://www.dhcr.state.ny.us/ora/pubs/html/rentregsetpa.htm and http://www.dhcr.state.ny.us/ora/pubs/html/2005etpr.htm

vii) Selected DOB Rules and Reference Standards http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/html/reference/stan_rules.shtml

viii) Current New York City Administrative Decisions: http://www.citylaw.org/cityadmin.php

10. Governmental Agencies

a) US Government portal http://www.firstgov.gov/ b) NYS portal http://www.state.ny.us/ c) NYC portal http://nyc.gov/portal/index.jsp?front_door=true and (to

search) http://search1.nyc.gov/search?access=p&sort=date%3AD%3AL%3Ad1&output=xml_no_dtd&site=default_collection&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&client=default_frontend&proxystylesheet=default_frontend&ip=68.236.174.4&proxycustom=%3CADVANCED/%3E

d) HUD: http://www.hud.gov/ e) NYS DHCR http://www.dhcr.state.ny.us/ f) NYC Board of Standards & Appeals:

http://www.nyc.gov/html/bsa/html/home/home.shtml g) NYC Council Land Use: h) NYC Dept of City Planning http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/home.html

i) Zoning Maps http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/zone/zmapintr.shtml ii) Zoning Text http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/zone/zonetext.shtml

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iii) Land Use Application Status http://www.nyc.gov/html/dcp/html/lu_apps/lu_app1.shtml

i) Department of Buildings http://www.nyc.gov/html/dob/html/home/home.shtml i) DOB Building Information System http://a810-

bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/bsqpm01.jsp j) NYS Division of Housing and Community Renewal

http://www.dhcr.state.ny.us/ora/ora.htm k) NYC Rent Guidelines Board http://www.housingnyc.com/ l) NYC Environmental Control Board

http://www.nyc.gov/html/dep/html/ecb.html m) NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission

http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/html/home/home.shtml n) Worker’s Compensation Board Forms

http://www.wcb.state.ny.us/content/main/Forms.jsp o) Useful Items Not Available on the Internet as of Date of Lecture

(1) Housing Court Decisions (2) Title Reports (3) Lis Pendens (there are some commercial services; we have not

used them and therefore cannot recommend them) (4) Department of Housing and Community Renewal decisions and

judgments Purchase Information 1. General

Property Shark (free and subscription) http://www.propertyshark.com/mason/Accounts/logon.html Real Estate Board of NY (subscription) https://members.rebny.com/html/welcome.html

2. Other addresses for the premises a) NYC Housing Preservation & Development

http://167.153.4.71/hpdonline/provide_address.aspx 3. Sales prices

a) Top Real Estate Brokers in Area b) Comparable Sales Prices

i) Real Estate Board of NY (subscription) https://members.rebny.com/html/welcome.html

ii) Property Shark http://www.propertyshark.com/mason/Accounts/logon.html iii) Zillow http://www.zillow.com/ iv) Real Estate ABC http://www.realestateabc.com/home-values/ v) Home Price Records http://www.homepricerecords.com/

c) Recorded Documents ACRIS (Automated City Register Information System) http://a836-acris.nyc.gov/Scripts/Coverpage.dll/index Property Shark http://www.propertyshark.com/mason/Accounts/logon.html

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d) Number of floors Property Shark http://www.propertyshark.com/mason/Accounts/logon.html

e) Year built/Pre-War/Post War Property Shark http://www.propertyshark.com/mason/Accounts/logon.html

f) Elevator/Walkup Property Shark http://www.propertyshark.com/mason/Accounts/logon.html

g) Floor plans – brokers (also search building for old listings, retrieve cached pages) h) Locating a Seller

ACRIS (Automated City Register Information System) http://a836-acris.nyc.gov/Scripts/Coverpage.dll/index Property Shark http://www.propertyshark.com/mason/Accounts/logon.html

p) Determining Information About a Property i) Owner

(1) HPD Registration http://167.153.4.71/hpdonline/provide_address.aspx

(2) Deed/filed leases ACRIS http://a836-acris.nyc.gov/Scripts/Coverpage.dll/index

(3) Who is paying taxes NYC Department of Finance http://webapps.nyc.gov:8084/CICS/fin1/find001I ii) Managing agent HPD Registration

http://167.153.4.71/hpdonline/provide_address.aspx iii) Taxes

(1) Amount of taxes: NYC Department of Finance http://webapps.nyc.gov:8084/CICS/fin1/find001I PropertyShark http://www.propertyshark.com/mason/Accounts/logon.html iv) Certificate of Occupancy

(1) NYC Department of Buildings http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/bsqpm01.jsp v) Information on Neighborhood, city and street

(1) NYC Office of Operations “My Neighborhood Statistics” http://gis.nyc.gov/ops/mmr/address.jsp?app=MMR

(2) Infoshare (extremely detailed census information) http://infoshare.org/

(3) Map/Graphical info http://www.myciti.org/make_a_map_citi2.html and/or http://www.oasisnyc.net/OASISMap.htm

vi) Ownership history and information to contact owner vii) Documents filed with County Clerk

ACRIS http://a836-acris.nyc.gov/Scripts/Coverpage.dll/index viii) Filed Liens

ACRIS http://a836-acris.nyc.gov/Scripts/Coverpage.dll/index ix) Legal and administrative decisions

OATH New York City Administrative Decisions http://www.citylaw.org/cityadmin.php

x) Legal descriptions (i.e., metes & bounds) ACRIS http://a836-acris.nyc.gov/Scripts/Coverpage.dll/index

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xi) Mortgages (filed) ACRIS http://a836-acris.nyc.gov/Scripts/Coverpage.dll/index

xii) Past and Outstanding Violations (1) Open Violations HPD Registration

http://167.153.4.71/hpdonline/provide_address.aspx (2) Department of Buildings, Building Information Services (BIS)

http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/bispi00.jsp xiii) Boiler Information

http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/bispi00.jsp xiv) Emergency repairs HPD Registration http://167.153.4.71/hpdonline/provide_address.aspx xv) Landmark Status

(1) NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission http://www.nyc.gov/html/lpc/html/home/home.shtml

(2) NYC Department of Buildings http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/bsqpm01.jsp

(3) Property Shark http://www.propertyshark.com/mason/Accounts/logon.html

xvi) Job Permits (1) Department of Buildings, Building Information Services (BIS)

http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/bispi00.jsp xvii) Elevator Records (Inspection and Violation) http://a810-bisweb.nyc.gov/bisweb/bispi00.jsp

11. Maps & photos i) Pictures of Property

(1) Google Earth (free download at http://earth.google.com/ ) satellite, some aerial change POV

(2) Windows Live (map, aerial, satellite change POV) http://local.live.com/

(3) A9 (maps, street level) http://maps.a9.com/ (4) Google Maps (map & satellite) http://maps.google.com/ (5) Yahoo Local Maps (Beta) (map & satellite)

http://maps.yahoo.com/beta/#maxp=search&q1=us (6) Mapquest (maps) http://www.mapquest.com/ (7) MSN Maps http://mappoint.msn.com/ (8) Microsoft Terraserver (aerial, topographic)

http://terraserver.microsoft.com/ (9) US Geological Survey Maps

http://nmviewogc.cr.usgs.gov/viewer.htm (a) Multiple overlays

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For the Professional Attorneys using these investigative sources, as well as the analogous LexisNexis

and Westlaw searches should be aware of the privacy parameters of state and federal statutes, such as the Driver Privacy Protection Act,1 the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act,2 the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act3 and New York Fair Credit Reporting Act,4 which provide both civil and criminal penalties for improper invasion of privacy and improper dissemination or use of protected information. Legal/Investigative (subscription) 1. LexisNexis http://www.lexisnexis.com/ 2. Westlaw http://web2.westlaw.com/ DMV Dial-In Account 1. Application: http://www.nysdmv.com/forms/mv15com.pdf 2. Description (User Manual) http://www.nysdmv.com/forms/mv15dial.pdf Data Brokers (subscription) 1. Accurate Credit http://accuratecredit.com/ 2. Accurint http://www.accurint.com/ 3. Acxiom http://www.acxiominsight.com/ 4. Intelius http://www.intelius.com/ 5. IRBSearch, LLC http://www.irbsearch.com/ 6. KnowX http://www.knowx.com/ 7. LocatePlus http://www.locateplus.com/ 8. Merlin Data https://www.merlindata.com/ 9. SearchSytems.net http://www.searchsystems.net/ (free + subscription) 10.USSearch.com http://www.ussearch.com/consumer/index.jsp Credit Bureaus – 1. Equifax http://www.equifax.com/biz/index.shtml 2. Experian http://www.experian.com/business_services/index.html 3. Transunion http://www.transunion.com/corporate/business/business.page

1 18 USC 2721 et seq. 2 15 USC 1692 et seq. 3 15 USC 1681 et seq. 4 GBL 380 et seq.

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The Internet Is Not A Panacea 1. Why the internet is not enough

a) Many sites are not monitored by anyone for correctness b) Sites/pages may not be updated

2. What else you have to do (minimally) a) Title report b) Engineer report c) Inspection of premises d) Rent roll, financials e) Walk-around

Determining A Tenant’s Primary Residence

1. Illegal Sublet and Non-Primary Residence Cases

a) Building a Case i) Hire a PI ii) Tools

(1) Zaba Search (free + purchase) http://www.zabasearch.com/ \ (2) MerlinData (subscription) http://www.merlindata.com/ (3) PeopleFinders (free + purchase) http://www.peoplefinders.com/ (4) US Search (free + purchase)

http://www.ussearch.com/consumer/index.jsp (5) KnowX (purchase) http://www.knowx.com/ (6) Date of birth (not all and not always easy to determine by name:

http://www.birthdatabase.com/ (7) Reverse directories – if you have an address or telephone number

(a) Langenberg.com http://www.langenberg.com/ (b) Skiptools http://www.skiptools.com/ (c) Infospace http://www.infospace.com/home/white-pages/reverse-phone

and http://www.infospace.com/home/white-pages/reverse-address (d) Netscape

http://wp.netscape.com/netcenter/whitereverse.html?cp=tec_1b (e) Infobel http://www.infobel.com/usa/wp/revsearch/ and

http://www.infobel.com/usa/wp/addsearch/ 2. Researching a Person

a) Always do one or more general searches b) Public records directories:

i) Search Systems http://www.searchsystems.net/ ii) BRB Publications http://www.brbpub.com/pubrecsites.asp iii) PublicRecordFinder.com http://www.publicrecordfinder.com/ iv)

c) Department of Motor Vehicles http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/ i) Beware the federal Driver's Privacy Protection Act (DPPA)

(1) Text: http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/forms/mv15dppa.pdf (2) Civil & criminal penalties for violation

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ii) Need MV-15GC – Authorization for Release of Personal Information plus http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/forms/mv15gc.pdf

iii) MV-15 – Request for Driving and/or Vehicle Record Information http://www.nydmv.state.ny.us/forms/mv15.pdf

d) Property Address i) Same investigation as above, however local governmental agencies

e) Social Security i) Usually unavailable

f) Voting Records i) NYC Board of Elections http://www.vote.nyc.ny.us/offices.html ii) Check in all jurisdictions suspected to be primary residence

g) Campaign contributions i) Opensecrets.org http://www.opensecrets.org/indivs/index.asp ii) Political Moneyline

http://www.tray.com/cgi-win/indexhtml.exe?MBF=NAME iii) Campaignmoney.com http://www.campaignmoney.com/advanced.asp iv) NYS Board of Elections

http://www.elections.state.ny.us/NYSBOE/finance/contribandexpend.htm v) Other State (reference articles)

http://www.llrx.com/columns/roundup10.htm#ny and http://www.llrx.com/columns/roundup25.htm

h) Banking – send her a refund check i) Licensed professions – licensing authority, disciplinary authority