A New York real estate lawyer on the early warning signs that most buyers and sellers never notice until it’s too late
Picture this: an accepted offer, a handshake, a broker sending congratulatory emails. Everyone is smiling. The deal feels done. And somewhere in the paperwork, a problem is already taking shape.
It might be a title defect that slipped through years ago. It could be a co-op building carrying more litigation than its board has disclosed. It might be a seller whose story about the renovation doesn’t quite match what the permit records show. The transaction looks clean from the outside. But experienced eyes see something different.
Michael Moshan has spent his career developing those eyes. As a New York real estate attorney practicing as a solo practitioner, Michael Moshan handles the kind of transactions where details matter: co-op and condominium purchases, estate sales, complex financing structures, and the particular quirks that make New York real estate unlike anywhere else in the country.
Over the course of his practice, he has learned that most deals don’t fall apart suddenly. They fall apart because something small was overlooked early.
“One of the biggest misconceptions is that real estate closings in New York are straightforward,” Moshan explained. “In reality, New York has one of the most complex real estate systems in the country.”
That complexity is exactly why, in Moshan’s view, the attorney’s role isn’t a formality. It’s a safeguard.
Why the Period Before Contract Signing Deserves More Attention
In New York, there’s a stretch of time between an accepted offer and a fully executed contract that doesn’t get nearly enough credit for how much can go wrong inside it. No money has changed hands in any meaningful way. The buyer is excited. The seller is ready to move on. And both sides often treat this window as a waiting room rather than a working room.
Moshan treats it differently. This is where he starts looking.
The building’s finances. The board meeting minutes. The offering plan. Any pending assessments, capital projects, or open litigation. For co-op buyers especially, the building’s underlying mortgage, its reserve fund health, and its policies around subletting and pets can all become deal-altering discoveries if they surface after a buyer is emotionally committed and financially exposed.
The warning signs he watches for during this stage include:
Discrepancies between what a seller or listing describes and what the documents actually show
Delays or silence from managing agents, boards, or the seller’s attorney that seem disproportionate to the complexity of the request
Permits that don’t match the work that was done, or renovations that have no permit record at all
Title searches that reveal old liens, unresolved estate matters, or encumbrances the seller hasn’t mentioned
Buildings with high percentages of investor-owned units or known financing restrictions from major lenders
None of these issues automatically kill a deal. But each one changes what the buyer is actually purchasing. And a buyer who doesn’t know about them before signing has fewer options than one who finds out early.
When the Story Doesn’t Match the Paperwork
Moshan describes a specific pattern he has seen repeat itself across his career. A seller mentions casually that they renovated the kitchen. The scope of the work sounds simple enough. Then the permit records tell a different story, or no story at all because no permits were ever pulled.
This is not always intentional deception. Sometimes sellers genuinely don’t know what their contractor did or didn’t file. But the legal and practical consequences land on the buyer either way. Unpermitted work can trigger issues at closing, create financing complications, and leave a new owner responsible for bringing the space into compliance.
The same principle applies to financial disclosures. A building’s board may present its reserve fund as healthy while meeting minutes from two years ago describe an ongoing structural issue that hasn’t been resolved. The discrepancy between what is said and what is documented is itself the warning sign.
Michael Moshan looks at what the paperwork actually says, not just what everyone at the table is telling him.
The Building Matters as Much as the Apartment
Co-op and condominium buyers in New York sometimes focus so heavily on the unit they’re purchasing that they underweight the building itself. Moshan has consistently pushed back on that instinct.
A beautiful apartment inside a building with thin reserves, a pending assessment, or active litigation against the sponsor is a different purchase than it appears on the surface. And some of these issues are not obvious from a single building visit or even a casual review of the financials.
He pays particular attention to:
The size and health of the reserve fund relative to the building’s age and maintenance needs
Any pending or threatened litigation involving the building or its sponsor
Special assessments that haven’t yet been formally announced but appear in board minutes
Insurance coverage and whether the building’s policy creates gaps in individual unit coverage
Sublet and pet policies, which can affect a buyer’s flexibility and the building’s appeal to future buyers
Financing restrictions that may limit the pool of eligible future purchasers
There are also the highly specific situations that only a New York real estate lawyer encounters with regularity. Artists in Residence designations in Soho. Estate sales carrying title complications from prior generations. Buildings where the underlying co-op structure carries financing terms that most buyers have never considered. These are not hypothetical edge cases. They come up.
Due Diligence Is Preparation, Not Pessimism
One of the more persistent misunderstandings Moshan encounters is the idea that a thorough attorney is a deal-killing attorney. Clients occasionally worry that raising too many questions will spook the other side or slow everything down unnecessarily.
His view is direct: due diligence is not pessimism. It’s preparation.
The purpose of a careful review isn’t to find reasons to walk away. It’s to understand what is actually being purchased, so the client can make an informed decision with full information rather than incomplete information. A buyer who closes with open eyes is in a fundamentally stronger position than one who discovers a problem after the deed has transferred.
Moshan recalled a case early in his career that sharpened this philosophy. He represented a buyer who had fallen in love with a property and wanted to waive nearly every protective contingency to secure the deal quickly. Rather than simply following instructions, Moshan paused and walked the client through each risk, point by point. The client listened. Weeks later, significant problems with the property surfaced that would have left the buyer fully exposed without those protections.
“Clients don’t just need someone to say yes to their impulses,” he reflected. “They need a counselor who protects them, even from themselves at times.”
Knowing Which Problems Actually Matter
Not every complication in a real estate transaction is a real problem. Part of what experience builds is the ability to tell the difference.
A title objection can be routine or it can be a genuine obstacle. A delay from the managing agent can reflect administrative backlog or it can mean something is being held back. A contract provision that looks aggressive may be standard for that seller’s attorney, or it may be specifically designed to shift risk onto the buyer in a meaningful way.
Michael Moshan lawyer describes this pattern recognition as one of the most practical advantages of experience. Newer practitioners, understandably, may treat every complication as a crisis because they don’t yet have enough repetitions to calibrate. Experienced attorneys can distinguish between the routine friction of a transaction and the friction that actually signals risk.
That calibration matters because overreaction has its own costs. A client who is told every minor issue is a disaster becomes exhausted, makes decisions based on anxiety rather than analysis, and sometimes abandons deals that would have served them well. The attorney’s job is to give clients an accurate read, not a frightening one.
Managing the Emotional Side of a High-Stakes Transaction
New York real estate is, for most buyers, one of the largest financial commitments of their lives. And financial stakes almost always carry emotional weight. Moshan is direct about the fact that managing that emotional dimension is part of his job.
When a title defect surfaced late in a transaction he was handling for a seller, his client was furious and the buyer was ready to walk. Moshan’s response was to reframe the situation. Not as a disaster, but as a puzzle. He brought in a title expert, coordinated with prior owners, and structured a resolution. The deal closed.
“That experience reinforced for me that the best lawyers aren’t just legal technicians,” he explained. “They’re problem-solvers who remain steady under pressure.”
Steadiness is not the same as optimism. It means giving clients an honest picture of where things stand, what the options are, and what the realistic range of outcomes looks like. It means being available on a Friday evening when something unexpected comes up. It means picking up the phone.
For clients working with Michael Moshan attorney, the goal from the first conversation is simple: no surprises at the closing table. The issues that can’t be avoided get addressed early, when there are still options. The ones that turn out to be nothing get set aside without drama.
In a market that moves as fast and unpredictably as New York real estate, that kind of early, clear-eyed attention is what gives buyers and sellers the most valuable thing a transaction can offer: time to decide.
