LNP has announced the winners of their 2021 Readers’ Choice Awards for favorite local businesses. We’re proud to announce that Russell, Krafft & Gruber, LLP has been named the number one Law Firm in Lancaster County.

We are honored and grateful to have such loyal clients who voted for us to receive the top spot in this category, and we look forward to continuing in this tradition of excellence to the community.

RKG offers services in three locations in Lancaster County, including our brand-new Lancaster location at North Pointe:
Continue Reading RKG Voted Best Law Firm in LNP’s 2021 Readers’ Choice Awards

Due to increased property foreclosures, Lancaster County has developed a new Residential Mortgage Foreclosure Diversion Program (RMFD).  The Program gives a separate pathway that residential mortgage foreclosures need to follow.  Hopefully, the RMFD will allow homeowners to work out mortgage defaults without losing their homes through foreclosure.  If so, the RMFD has the added bonus of taking some foreclosure cases out of the Court’s schedule.

Eligibility

A homeowner with a mortgage in default is eligible for the program if the home:

  • is owner-occupied
  • is the owner’s primary residence
  • is part of a building with four or fewer residential units
  • has a remaining balance on the Mortgage of $400,000 or less
  • is not part of any bankruptcy, divorce or estate proceedings

Continue Reading New Foreclosure Process in Lancaster County

The Lancaster office of Russell, Krafft & Gruber has finally moved into our new home, and we look forward to serving you from our new offices at 101 North Pointe Boulevard.

Our attorneys and staff are excited to meet with you in our updated space beginning on August 9, 2021.

Please use our new address for all correspondence:

101 North Pointe Boulevard

Suite 202

Lancaster, PA 17601

Continue Reading We’ve Moved!

Exciting changes are happening at Russell, Krafft & Gruber as we prepare to move our Hempfield office to our new location this summer:

101 North Pointe Boulevard

Suite 202 (2nd Floor)

Lancaster, PA 17601

map of the old RKG offices and the new ones we're moving to

Click here to go directly to Google Maps for directions

Centrally located at North Pointe on the second floor of the PNC Bank Building, our new offices are right off Oregon Pike and Route 30 just minutes from downtown Lancaster. They feature updated spaces designed to accommodate the needs of our clients and the delivery of legal services in 2021 and beyond.

What’s not changing is the exceptional representation and personalized service you can count on from the same attorneys and staff you know at RKG.  You can also expect the same great service at our Ephrata and Willow Street locations which remain the same.

For our Lancaster clients, please continue to visit us at 930 Red Rose Court, and we’ll update the blog when our move date is set. We look forward to seeing you there!

We all know someone with a story like this these days:  You find the house of your dreams.  It is in a good neighborhood with a good school district.  You are preapproved for a mortgage, and you tell your realtor to put in an offer for the full asking price.  The next day, your realtor tells you that there were five all-cash offers all over the asking price.  So you lose out on the home.  For some, this scenario has played out over and over again in the past 18 months.

From the outside, today’s housing market looks a lot like the one in 2006.  Buyers are racing to make offers on existing homes.  Developers are overpaying for vacant land, hoping to sell at a high enough price to cover their debt.  People much, much more qualified than me — like Nobel Prize-winning economists and professors — are trying to figure out why housing prices are increasing so rapidly.  And more importantly, they are trying to figure out what is coming next.

Is this a housing bubble?  Is the market going to crash again like it did in 2008?
Continue Reading Will Housing Prices Ever Come Down? Comparing the Housing Bubble of the 2000s to Today

Tuesday evening, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) sent out an email notification indicating that, effective immediately, certain measures that were in place during the COVID-19 pandemic have been eliminated.  The most notable changes relate to the temporary authorization that the PLCB granted to allow for the use of expanded outdoor seating areas and the sale of mixed drinks to go by retail licensees.

What’s the genesis of this? Why is the rug seemingly being pulled out from under an industry that generates over $24 Billion in sales?  The industry surely deserves better. Today’s post will explain how and why they’re making these decisions as the disaster declaration ends.
Continue Reading End of the Disaster Declaration Disastrous for Licensees

In the last installment of the series, I went through some of the terms that Associations need to know when a Unit Owner files for Bankruptcy.  This edition will talk about the “Automatic Stay” and how it affects Creditors like an Association. The first thing to remember is that Bankruptcy is a way to allow people who have debts to get a fresh start.  The Automatic Stay gives Debtors some cooling off time.  It is a period where Debtors do not have to worry about anyone trying to collect against them.

How Does an Automatic Stay Limit Collections?

When someone files for Bankruptcy, they automatically get protected by an Automatic Stay.  Basically, the Automatic Stay stops all actions against the Debtor. The Automatic Stay prohibits anyone from starting or continuing any kind of legal action against a Debtor that does any of the following:
Continue Reading Condominiums, Homeowners’ Associations and Bankruptcy: The Automatic Stay

Has your Board, especially if it has a financial professional on it, ever looked with dismay at the low interest that a Capital Reserve Fund is earning?  They may think that if they could get a better return on that Reserve Fund, then they could do more projects.  Or they could reduce assessments.

This is when they ask about investing the Reserve Funds. Some of the questions that I get the most are:

  • How can an Association invest their capital reserve funds?
  • Does the Association need to keep its money in CDs?
  • Can it invest in the market to get a better return?

Continue Reading Can an Association Invest Its Capital Reserve Funds?

In the last installment of this series, I explained that Bankruptcy is a federal law designed to help people who owe money get a fresh start.  In this part, I want to explain some terms that are helpful to remember.

These are going to be the way that I think of the terms – in plain English.  If you want to see the definitions in the official United States Bankruptcy Code, you can look here.
Continue Reading Condominiums, Homeowners’ Associations and Bankruptcy: What is an “Automatic Stay” and Other Terms You Need to Know

Now that people who have been vaccinated are allowed to throw away their masks, the question on people’s minds is, “How do we enforce that?” Employers want to know if they can ask their employees for proof of vaccination.

Surprisingly, yes.

Most employers are allowed to ask their employees for proof that they have received vaccines. Asking for proof of a vaccine does not violate HIPAA or the ADA.
Continue Reading Can Employers Ask Their Employees for Proof of Vaccination?