A relocated law firm has gone to Westchester Supreme Court on its own behalf to recover a six-figure security deposit it claims the firm”™s former landlord wrongly used to pay a mortgage servicer late last year.
Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edeleman & Dicker L.L.P. filed its claim for the $318,000 security deposit and monetary damages one day after foreclosure proceedings began in late February against the landlord of the firm’s former office space on Harrison’s Platinum Mile, Dryland Gannett 3 L.L.C.
A special loan servicer in Florida, LNR Partners L.L.C., in its foreclosure filing in Westchester Supreme Court said Dryland owed approximately $27.1 million on a $35.3 million mortgage for 3 Gannett Drive when it defaulted in February. The owner of the class B building is an entity of Heritage Realty Services L.L.C. in Manhattan. Both Dryland Gannett and LNR Partners are defendants in the Wilson Elser lawsuit.
Wilson Elser was anchor tenant for 12 years at 3 Gannett Drive, in the former Gannett Office Park, until it relocated in the second half of 2013 to 1133 Westchester Ave. in White Plains. It has about 160 lawyers in its Westchester office.
Wilson Elser in its complaint said its former landlord in mid-December drew $318,000 from the firm’s bank security deposit credit account and deposited the money with LNR. The former tenant claims the withdrawal was unauthorized and breached terms of its lease regarding the security deposit, initially set at $1.64 million in 2001. Wilson Elser attorneys argued the landlord did not serve the firm with a notice of default or a 30-day period to cure any default, as required by the lease.
Attorneys for Dryland Gannett have until April 9 to answer the complaint in court.
