Practice Area

Creditors’ Rights

The Road To Recovery.

Unpaid debt is a major problem for today’s lenders. Underberg & Kessler’s Creditors’ Rights Practice Group helps businesses recover their assets. We represent several major banks doing business in the Western New York area, as well as an ever-increasing number of companies that seek advice and counsel about unpaid accounts. We provide complete legal services to help creditors resolve their customers’ outstanding debts—from restructuring problem loans to collecting all amounts due. Although we generally represent creditors, we have handled the credit problems of debtors as well.

For more information about Creditors’ Rights, contact David M. Tang

Chair of Practice Group

Our Creditors’ Rights Practice Group has extensive experience in:

Loan work-outs and debt restructuring
Bankruptcy and reorganization proceedings
Lender liability issues
Commercial collections
Foreclosures and evictions
Tax issues
Resale of properties taken in foreclosure

Relevant Experience

Oversaw the Chapter 11 proceeding of a company that performed unique services worldwide. In representing the foreign owner and largest creditor of the Debtor, we reduced our client’s exposure by thousands of dollars and recovered in excess of $500,000 for our client.
Represented a lender in a $6 million commercial mortgage foreclosure against a strip mall located in Buffalo, New York. The defendant answered the complaint by raising numerous equitable and other defenses. Underberg & Kessler drafted a legal memorandum demonstrating the lack of merit of the defenses. The Court incorporated this reasoning into its decision awarding our client summary judgment.
Represented a bank in the Chapter 11 proceeding of a company in the process of being sold. In spite of alleged fraud, disappearing collateral and similar matters, we established a program of periodic reductions from inventory sales and monitored sale progress. Our client received full payment of its principal, interest and fees within two months of the filing. (Other creditors received virtually nothing.)
Represented a first mortgagee in a foreclosure action against an ice arena under construction. The firm successfully obtained an order lifting the automatic stay issued by the Bankruptcy Court and obtained title to the property. As a result, the ice arena was completed and opened for operation. We obtained two subsequent deficiency judgments, foreclosed on a second piece of collateral and pursued the individual obligors.
Appointed Receiver by the Federal District Court for Western New York to collect approximately $600,000 in accounts due to a special class of creditors (PACA). Collected over $525,000 in such accounts since appointment. Additional collections are probable. Also appointed to act as Receiver for failing businesses and/or those with feuding owners.
Successfully collected all monies to an Australian lender for maritime mortgages (Rochester Fast Ferry). This led to an appointment by Judge Feldman as administrator of the $700,000 creditors’ fund, funded by the City of Rochester for CATS creditors.
Successfully concluded numerous business purchases and sales under Article 9 of the Uniform Commercial Code and Section 363 of the Bankruptcy Code (including a Western New York professional hockey team).
We have represented lenders in foreclosure, work-out and bankruptcy actions involving condominiums, retail malls, commercial properties, farms containing hundreds of acres, and numerous residential properties (including a significant volume of multifamily structures). In each of these actions, we have also followed through on the necessary evictions of tenants and the resale of properties taken after the foreclosure sale.
Our attorneys represented a commercial surety in its dispute with a bankruptcy trustee over the status of certain assets the Trustee claimed were property of the bankruptcy estate. The assets, $925,000, were proceeds of a litigation claim prosecuted by the Trustee in the name of the debtor, the surety’s principal. Our lawyers convinced the Court, on appeal, that the assets were not “property of the estate” and recovered the proceeds for the client.
We are currently handling loan work-outs, bankruptcies and foreclosures for banking clients with claims ranging from a few thousand dollars to millions of dollars. These claims run the gamut of problem loan scenarios, such as multimillion-dollar loans to contractors with federal tax liens and New York Lien Law issues, the liquidations of small businesses with efforts to realize upon commercial collateral such as equipment, inventory and accounts, bankruptcies of businesses, collection actions against borrowers and guarantors, and foreclosures of residential and commercial real estate, including apartment complexes.