You spent eight months negotiating a $4.2 million supply contract with a Brooklyn manufacturer. The ink dried in April. In July, your biggest competitor — knowing every detail of your deal — calls the manufacturer, offers to indemnify any early-termination liability, and walks away with your contract. You didn't just lose a sale. A rival deliberately blew up a signed agreement. In New York, that's a business tort called tortious interference with contract, and it lets you sue

You spent two years landing an exclusive supply agreement with a New Jersey manufacturer to distribute their equipment across the five boroughs. Two months after signing, your top competitor takes the manufacturer's CEO to dinner at Cipriani, promises richer margins, and walks away with your deal. Your $4 million pipeline evaporates overnight. In New York, that's not just cutthroat competition — it may be tortious interference with contract in New York, and you may have a cla

Your Long Island City manufacturing company just signed a five-year exclusive distribution deal with a national retailer. Two weeks later, a competitor calls the retailer, undercuts your pricing, and dangles a sweetheart rebate. The retailer walks. Your CFO is furious, your projections are in ruins, and the competitor shrugs it off as tough business. If any of this sounds familiar, you're likely looking at a claim for tortious interference with contract in New York — on

You're a mechanical subcontractor who wrapped up your work on a Hudson Yards office fit-out six months ago. Your $850,000 final requisition sits unpaid because the general contractor keeps pointing to one clause buried on page 14 of the subcontract: “Contractor shall have no obligation to pay Subcontractor until and unless Contractor has received payment for Subcontractor's work from Owner.” The GC calls it a pay-if-paid clause. New York calls it something else &m

Your biggest client just terminated a three-year supply agreement with 22 months left to run. They hired your direct competitor instead. When you press for an explanation, an executive admits the competitor's sales VP showed up with a confidential copy of your pricing schedule and offered to undercut you by 18% if the client tore up your deal. You're not just looking at a breach of contract claim against the client. You may have a tortious interference with contract in New Yo

You renovated the parlor floor of your Park Slope brownstone two years ago. The contractor charged $620,000, finished on schedule, and walked off the job with a smile. Now you notice the dining room ceiling sagging, a hairline crack running along the new exterior wall, and water staining the freshly painted plaster every time it rains hard. You call the contractor. He doesn't pick up. Welcome to the messy world of New York construction defect claims. At Yassi Law PC, we repre

You opened a restaurant in Hell's Kitchen six years ago. The original lease term ended in March, you've been paying rent month-to-month while you negotiate a renewal, and last week your landlord's lawyer slid a 30-day notice of termination under your door. You're staring at the prospect of losing the build-out, the liquor license tied to the premises, and the goodwill you've spent years cultivating on Ninth Avenue. NYC commercial holdover proceedings move faster than almost a

You bid a $4.2 million mixed-use renovation in Bushwick on a tight nine-month schedule. Three months in, the owner stops processing permits, fires the architect, and adds two stories to the design. Your crews sit idle for eleven weeks. When you finally finish — four months late — you submit a $620,000 delay claim. The owner's lawyer responds with one sentence: “Please review Article 14.8 of the contract.” That's a no-damages-for-delay clause. And in Ne

You're a commercial broker who spent eight months walking a hedge fund through every available Class A floor in Midtown. You introduced them to your client's Park Avenue tower, ran the tours, drafted the term sheet — and then the landlord cut you out and closed the lease through an in-house leasing agent. The commission you were counting on, somewhere north of $400,000, isn't coming. Broker commission disputes in New York commercial real estate happen exactly like this, and t

You signed a three-year SaaS contract with a vendor whose website advertised 99.99% uptime, SOC 2 compliance, and dedicated NYC-based support. Six months in, your Midtown firm is down for hours at a time, the SOC 2 audit was never completed, and the 'dedicated support' is a chatbot. You start asking around and discover dozens of other small businesses across Manhattan and Brooklyn signed the same contract based on the same marketing. Your lawyer mentions a GBL § 349 deceptive

You spent five years building relationships with the dozen wholesale accounts that keep your Garment District apparel business alive. Your former sales director leaves for a competitor across the river in Jersey City, and within sixty days, eight of those accounts have quietly moved their orders. You learn she walked out with a copy of your customer list and your pricing matrix, and her new employer has been undercutting your bids by exactly the margin she knew you needed to

You started a $1.2 million brownstone gut renovation in Cobble Hill last spring. Four months in, your contractor hands you a $340,000 invoice for " extra work" — added structural beams, rerouted plumbing, premium tile you never picked. You ask where the change orders are. He shrugs and says you verbally approved everything over coffee on the job site. Welcome to a change order dispute — the single most common fight in New York residential and commercial

You opened a wine bar in Williamsburg three years ago at a base rent of $9,200 a month. Last week, your landlord sent a year-end "reconciliation" demanding $47,000 in back operating expenses, porter wage increases, and a real estate tax pass-through you don't remember agreeing to. The cover letter says pay within thirty days or face default. You read your lease for the first time since signing and realize you understand maybe sixty percent of what it says. You're not alone. C

You moved into your renovated Forest Hills colonial last spring. Eight months later, water is staining the dining room ceiling, the basement floor has hairline cracks running wall to wall, and the new bathroom tile is lifting. Your contractor stopped returning calls in October. Now you're staring at repair estimates that approach what you paid for the original work, and you're wondering whether a construction defect claim in New York is worth pursuing. It usually is — if you

You wired $750,000 to a Brooklyn developer to buy out a co-investor's stake in a Bushwick warehouse project. The closing fell apart. The developer kept your money for nine months and used it to pay off unrelated debts. There's no signed purchase agreement — just emails, a term sheet, and a wire confirmation. Can you still get your money back? Yes. That's exactly what unjust enrichment claims in New York are designed to address. When someone holds onto value that belongs to yo

You finished framing a brownstone gut renovation in Carroll Gardens four months ago. The general contractor keeps promising a check, the homeowner says they've already paid the GC in full, and your $340,000 invoice is gathering dust. A mechanic's lien in New York may be the single most powerful tool you have left — but only if you file it correctly, on time, and for the right amount. Get any of those three wrong and the lien becomes worthless, or worse, it becomes a malpracti

You and your business partner bought a Long Island City warehouse five years ago to expand your distribution operation. You put up half the down payment — $400,000 — but to streamline financing, the deed went into your partner's name alone. He promised it would be transferred to the LLC once the loan seasoned. Last week, he sold the building to a third party and pocketed the proceeds. New York gives you a remedy designed for exactly this situation: constructive trust claims i

You're a drywall subcontractor on a hotel renovation in Long Island City. You submitted your fourth requisition 47 days ago. The general contractor keeps saying the owner hasn't released funds. Meanwhile, your crew is still showing up, your supplier is calling about a $180,000 invoice, and your line of credit is maxed out. You don't need a lawsuit two years from now — you need to get paid this month. That's exactly the problem the New York Prompt Payment Act was designed to s

Your bookkeeper just disappeared with $850,000 from your construction company's operating account. Your former partner emptied a joint Manhattan brokerage account and bought a beach house in the Hamptons. The bank tells you it's a civil matter, the police tell you to hire a lawyer, and the money is moving fast. In New York, the legal vehicle for getting that money back isn't a breach of contract claim — it's a tort claim called conversion, often paired with a constructive tru

You wired a $400,000 progress payment to your general contractor for the gut renovation of your Upper West Side condo. Two weeks later, three subcontractors file mechanic's liens against your unit. They say they haven't been paid. The GC won't return your calls — and you're learning, painfully, that money you thought went to your project may have gone somewhere else entirely. That's exactly the problem New York's Lien Law Article 3-A trust fund regime was designed to solve. T