Erica Minchella is our Real Estate attorney member. Erica gave us a presentation which she described as “Tales From The Trenches”. Erica does both transactional and litigation work and she loves what she does! Erica talked about the recent occurrence of condos being converted back to apartment when an owner can secure 75% of the units. She also talked about purchasers being able to obtain financing over the purchase price so that they can afford to do improvements to the property which will raise the value. She described a case she had with an issue with the title insurance on an older property that had a code violation for an illegal set-back. Erica was able to negotiate a settlement. She also discussed the issues involved in bring a “Partition suit”, which she described as a divorce between the partners in a building ownership. She stressed the importance of checking out building code violations and making sure that the purchase contract has the proper contingencies in it to protect the buyer. Remember Erica Minchella and Minchella & Associates when you hear your associates mention that they are involved in the purchase, sale or foreclosure of real estate.