Archive

January 17, 2020

Citibank, N.A. will pay $18 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency to resolve claims that it violated the Flood Disaster Protection Act by failing to "force-place" flood insurance on behalf of borrowers as required by law.  OCC

February 20, 2019

New York City will pay $5.3 million to resolve claims that the city sought FEMA recovery funds for certain city-owned vehicles claimed to have been damaged during Superstorm Sandy.  However, the city provided inadequate training to officials regarding the identification of vehicles damaged as a result of the storm, and officials made no effort to inspect the vehicles or determine whether the claimed damage was, in fact, a result of Sandy.  Many of the vehicles for which the city sought full replacement costs had been nonoperational prior to the storm.  USAO SDNY

January 26, 2017

New Jersey filed two separate actions against home improvement companies and their owners alleging they used deceptive business practices in order to obtain $1.4 million in federal relief funds from 51 homeowners who paid them to repair and elevate their storm-damaged properties. Named in the first Complaint are father and son contractors Paul Zaidinski, Sr., and Paul Zaidinski, Jr., and their Point Pleasant-based company, Shore HL, Inc., which does business as “Shore House Lifters.” Named in the second Complaint are contractor George Rex and his Pleasantville-based companies, Atlantic Coast Housing Lifting, LLC and George Rex Construction, LLC. The defendants engaged in “unconscionable consumer practices” that include taking money from consumers to renovate, rebuild, and/or elevate Sandy-damaged homes and then failing to begin work, performing the work in a substandard manner, and/or abandoning unfinished projects without returning for weeks, months, or at all, according to the State’s Complaints. NJ