Construction, Development & Real Estate
Construction disputes turn on paper that someone created months earlier – the contract, the change orders, the requisitions, the lien, the trust ledger. The firm builds that record first, then uses it to force a resolution on terms the client chooses.
John H. Snyder represents investors, developers, management companies, and construction firms. For more than fifteen years, he has served as outside counsel to a New York general contractor. Work on every side of the project – capital, ownership, operations, and construction – shows where each party’s leverage sits and when it runs out.
The firm approaches every matter as a business problem first. Finance and project-modeling expertise lets the firm read a dispute the way a lender or sponsor reads a deal – through the capital stack, the budget, the draw schedule, and the pro forma. The firm models what each path costs each party, then pursues the outcome that serves the client’s business, not only its legal position.
Most construction claims are won or lost on deadlines and documents before anyone files. A mechanic’s lien on a private improvement in New York must be filed within eight months of the last work – four months on a single-family home. Lien Law trust obligations attach to every dollar paid on the project. The firm tracks those clocks from the first call.
The firm works with an established network of real estate and construction professionals, including licensed engineers, and assembles the team each matter requires. The client gets the expertise the case calls for, brought in when it matters.
When a dispute ripens, the firm assembles a complete pre-litigation package – lien, engineering analysis, damages accounting, and demand – so that the opposing party, its lender, and its counsel see the whole case at once. Many matters resolve at that stage. The ones that do not go to court or arbitration already prepared.
- Counsel in the Chapter 11 reorganization of a 48-story residential building in Times Square, financed with an $84 million construction loan.
- Prosecuting a general contractor’s payment claim against the owner of a Brooklyn residential project – mechanic’s lien, expert declaration from a licensed professional engineer, arbitration analysis, and escrow release demand delivered as a single pre-litigation package.
- Defending a general contractor in a Westchester County Lien Law §76 special proceeding, including preparation and service of a complete verified statement of trust accounts.
- Fifteen-plus years as outside counsel to a New York general contractor across contract, payment, and project disputes.