Month: April 2026

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Closing on a Co-op in Queens: Why the Process Is Different and What Surprises Buyers Most

By : Brian McCaffrey Law Admin April 29, 2026April 29, 2026

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A buyer in Queens makes an offer on a co-op apartment in Rego Park. The offer is accepted. The buyer is excited, the seller is relieved, the broker is already drafting the contract. Then the lawyer explains that there will be no closing for at least three months, that the building’s board can reject the buyer for almost any reason, that the buyer is not actually buying the apartment but rather buying shares in a corporation, and that the financing will work entirely differently from what the buyer expected.

The buyer’s reaction is usually some version of “wait, what?”
Co-ops are the dominant form of multi-family ownership in much of New York City, and Queens — particularly neighborhoods like Forest Hills, Rego Park, Jackson Heights, Kew Gardens, and Bayside — has thousands of co-op buildings. If you are buying or selling in this market, here is the version of the process you will not get from the broker.

You are buying stock and a lease, not real estate.
This is the most fundamental thing about co-op ownership and the thing that most surprises first-time buyers. When you “buy” a co-op apartment, you are actually buying shares in the cooperative corporation that owns the building. The shares come with a proprietary lease that gives you the right to occupy a specific apartment. The corporation owns the real property. You own the shares.

The practical consequences are real. The transaction is governed by Uniform Commercial Code Article 9 (because shares are personal property) rather than by the rules governing real estate. There is no deed; there is a stock certificate and an assignment of the proprietary lease. Recording happens at the corporate level, not in the city register’s office. Title insurance is replaced by a UCC search and a co-op title insurance policy that covers personal property interests.

The board approval process is the wild card.
Almost every co-op in Queens reserves the right to approve or reject prospective buyers. The board’s discretion is broad. Under the business judgment rule, as articulated in cases like Levandusky v. One Fifth Avenue Apartment Corp., a co-op board’s decisions are largely unreviewable as long as they are made in good faith, in furtherance of the corporation’s interests, and within the scope of the board’s authority.

Boards can reject a buyer for almost any reason short of explicit discrimination prohibited by federal, state, and city law. Insufficient post-closing liquidity. Concerns about the buyer’s profession. The board’s preferences about owner-occupancy versus subletting. Subjective discomfort with the application package. Buyers and their attorneys cannot easily predict outcomes, and rejected buyers usually have no good remedy.

The board package itself — financial statements, tax returns, employer verifications, reference letters, often including letters from the buyer’s accountant and personal references — is voluminous and personal. Buyers who have not been through it before are often startled by how much information the board expects.

Contract contingencies for co-ops are different.
A standard co-op contract in Queens contains contingencies that do not appear in single-family or condo contracts. The mortgage contingency is structured around the lender’s willingness to make a co-op loan, which is a different product from a traditional mortgage. The board approval contingency allows the buyer to walk away if the board rejects the application or fails to act within a specified period. The right of first refusal — present in some buildings — gives the corporation itself the right to step in and purchase the shares on the same terms as the contract buyer.

Each contingency has its own deadlines and procedural requirements. Missing a deadline can mean losing protections that would otherwise allow the buyer to recover their deposit if something goes wrong.
Maintenance, assessments, and what the monthly payment really covers.

The monthly maintenance charge in a co-op covers the building’s underlying mortgage, real estate taxes, insurance, staff, repairs, and reserves. It is functionally similar to condominium common charges plus property taxes, but the integration of taxes into maintenance has tax consequences for the shareholder — a portion of the maintenance attributable to mortgage interest and real estate taxes is generally deductible.

Assessments are additional charges levied for specific purposes — major repairs, capital improvements, building emergencies. Some buildings rely on assessments more than others, and a building’s assessment history is one of the best indicators of how well it is being managed. Reviewing the building’s financial statements before signing the contract is part of due diligence that careful buyers and their attorneys insist on.

Condos are simpler, but Queens has plenty of those too.
For buyers who want the structure of traditional real estate ownership, condominiums are the alternative. A condo unit is a true real property interest — the owner has a deed, holds title, and can sell, rent, or transfer with significantly more flexibility than a co-op shareholder. Condo boards typically have a right of first refusal but cannot reject buyers in the same way co-op boards can.

The trade-off is cost. Condos in Queens generally sell at higher prices per square foot than comparable co-ops, particularly in newer developments. Maintenance/common charges are typically lower than co-op maintenance, but property taxes are paid separately by the unit owner.

Closing costs in New York City surprise out-of-state buyers.
For both co-ops and condos, the cost of closing in New York City is meaningfully higher than in most other places. New York City and New York State transfer taxes apply to most transactions. The mansion tax — currently 1% on transactions of $1 million or more, with progressive higher rates above $2 million — catches more buyers than people expect, particularly in better neighborhoods. Title insurance, recording fees, mortgage taxes, and various other charges add up to closing costs that often run 2 to 5 percent of the purchase price.

For buyers, the mortgage recording tax is a significant cost on financed purchases — roughly 1.8 percent on loans under $500,000 and 1.925 percent above that. For sellers, the New York State and City transfer taxes total around 1.4 to 1.825 percent depending on the price. These are not minor numbers, and they need to be in the budget from the start.

Title issues in Queens are not unusual.
Queens has neighborhoods with title histories that go back to early twentieth-century subdivisions, family transfers spanning multiple generations, and properties that have passed through estates without being properly probated. Title issues come up regularly: missing heirs, undischarged mortgages from forty years ago, unreleased liens, easements that were never properly documented. Most of these can be resolved, but resolution takes time and requires the title company, the seller’s attorney, and the buyer’s attorney working together.

The lesson is to take title work seriously. A clean-looking abstract is sometimes hiding a problem several owners back, and the time to discover it is during the contract period, not at closing.

If you are buying or selling property in Queens — co-op, condo, single-family, or otherwise — the process has its own quirks and the early steps shape everything that follows. Working with counsel familiar with NYC real estate practice, and Queens specifically, is the difference between a closing that happens on time and one that does not.

Blog

Surrogate’s Court in Queens: A Realistic Walkthrough of What Probate Actually Looks Like

By : Brian McCaffrey Law Admin April 29, 2026April 29, 2026

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Probate is the legal process of administering the estate of someone who has died. The word itself sounds vaguely menacing, and most people who have not been through it picture something formal, expensive, and adversarial — courtrooms, judges, fights between family members.

The reality is usually simpler than that. Most probate proceedings in Queens County Surrogate’s Court — located at 88-11 Sutphin Boulevard, just a few blocks from the heart of Jamaica — proceed through a fairly standardized process, take several months to a year for routine estates, and resolve without serious dispute. The estates that turn into long, expensive battles are the exception, not the rule.

If you are about to be involved in probate as an executor, beneficiary, or family member, here is what the process actually looks like and where the real problems usually arise.

Probate happens when there is a will. Administration happens when there isn’t.

Two parallel tracks exist for handling an estate in New York. If the deceased left a valid will, the executor named in the will offers the will for probate, the court determines whether the will is valid, and once the will is admitted to probate, the executor receives Letters Testamentary authorizing them to administer the estate.

If there is no will, an interested party — usually a surviving spouse or close family member — petitions for Letters of Administration. The Surrogate’s Court appoints an administrator, generally following a statutory priority list under SCPA 1001 that favors the surviving spouse, then children, then parents, then siblings, and so on. The administrator then handles the estate, distributing it according to New York’s intestacy rules.

The two tracks involve similar steps after the initial appointment. The main practical difference is that intestate estates — estates without a will — often involve more complicated identification of heirs and more potential for disagreement over who is entitled to serve.

Letters Testamentary and Letters of Administration are the keys to everything.
Until the executor or administrator has been issued formal letters from Surrogate’s Court, they have no legal authority to do anything with the estate. They cannot access bank accounts, transfer real estate, sell securities, or pay creditors. The first practical task in any probate matter is getting letters issued, and the timeline for that depends on whether there is a will, who the heirs are, and whether anyone contests the petition.

For routine cases in Queens, letters typically issue within a few weeks to a few months of filing. Cases involving more complicated heir identification, family members in other countries, or contested petitions can take longer.

Citation, waiver, and the question of who gets notified.
New York requires that everyone with a potential interest in the estate be given an opportunity to object to the probate petition. For probate proceedings, this includes everyone who would inherit if the will were not admitted (the distributees) and everyone named in the will. For administration proceedings, it includes everyone with priority equal to or higher than the petitioner.

These interested parties either sign a waiver consenting to the petition or are formally cited — served with a citation directing them to appear in court if they wish to object. In routine family situations where everyone agrees, waivers get signed and the case moves quickly. In situations involving estranged family members, blended families, or disputes about who the proper heirs are, the citation process can extend the timeline significantly.

The fiduciary’s duties.
Once appointed, the executor or administrator has serious legal obligations under New York law. The estate must be marshaled — meaning all the assets must be identified, inventoried, and brought under the fiduciary’s control. Creditors must be notified and their claims evaluated. Tax returns — federal, state, and the deceased’s final personal return — must be prepared and filed. Beneficiaries must be informed of their interests. Property must be preserved and, where appropriate, liquidated. Distributions must be made.

These duties are not optional. A fiduciary who breaches them can be personally liable to the estate and to beneficiaries. Most fiduciaries handle the responsibilities competently, but the ones who get into trouble usually got into trouble by treating estate assets as their own, by failing to keep proper records, or by making distributions before tax obligations were settled.

Real estate makes things slower.
If the deceased owned real estate — and most Queens estates involve at least one piece — the property has to be addressed. Sometimes it is sold and the proceeds distributed. Sometimes it passes to a specific beneficiary under the will. Sometimes it is jointly owned and passes outside the estate entirely.

Queens real estate transactions during probate require careful attention to the title work. The property has to be marketable, which often requires resolving any open mortgages or judgments, confirming the chain of title, and obtaining the right court orders. Title companies are familiar with the process but want to see the documentation done correctly. A probate sale that closes smoothly is one where the title work was anticipated from the start.

Will contests happen, but most fail.
New York recognizes specific grounds for contesting a will: lack of testamentary capacity, undue influence, fraud, duress, and improper execution. To contest, an objectant must have standing — meaning they must be someone who would benefit if the will were rejected — and must allege specific facts supporting one of the grounds.

The “1404 examination” is a procedural feature unique to New York. Under SCPA 1404, a potential objectant can examine the attorney who drafted the will, the witnesses to the will, and the named executor before deciding whether to formally contest. Many potential will contests die at the 1404 stage when the examination reveals that the testator was clearly competent, the execution was clearly proper, and the grounds for contest do not exist.

When contests do proceed to litigation, they are expensive, time-consuming, and emotionally draining for everyone involved. The cases that win generally involve genuine evidence of incapacity (advanced dementia at the time of execution) or undue influence (a caregiver or new acquaintance who isolated the testator and arranged for substantial bequests to themselves).

Closing the estate.
After all assets have been collected, all debts and taxes paid, and all distributions made, the fiduciary closes the estate by either filing a formal accounting in Surrogate’s Court or — in cases where all beneficiaries agree — distributing the assets and obtaining receipts and releases from each beneficiary in lieu of formal accounting.

Routine estates with cooperative beneficiaries close on a release basis without significant court involvement. Estates with disputes or complicated administrations may require formal judicial accounting, which adds time and expense but provides the fiduciary with a court-approved discharge of duties.

If you are facing a probate matter in Queens — as a named executor, a family member of someone who died without a will, or a beneficiary trying to understand what is happening with an estate — the process is more navigable than it looks from the outside, and good preparation early is what makes it run smoothly.

Blog

The First Call After an Accident: What Queens Residents Should Do Before They Talk to an Insurance Company

By : Brian McCaffrey Law Admin April 29, 2026April 29, 2026

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The accident has just happened. A slip on a wet floor at a supermarket in Forest Hills. A fall down poorly maintained stairs at a building in Astoria. A trip on a broken sidewalk in Jamaica. The ambulance has come and gone, the emergency room visit is over, and the injured person is at home trying to figure out what to do next.

Within forty-eight hours, the phone rings. It is a representative from the property owner’s insurance company, friendly, sympathetic, asking how the injured person is doing and whether they would mind giving a brief recorded statement about what happened.

This is the moment when personal injury cases are most often won or lost. Not in court, not in negotiations months later, but in the first conversation with the insurance adjuster — the one most people think is just routine paperwork.

If you have been injured in Queens, here is what to do, what to avoid, and why the early decisions matter so much.

Do not give a recorded statement without counsel.
The first call from the insurance company is not casual. The adjuster’s job is to collect statements that limit the carrier’s exposure. Any inconsistency, any qualifier, any moment of uncertainty in the statement can be used later to attack credibility or contest the claim. “I think I was looking at my phone for a second” becomes a comparative fault argument. “My back was kind of hurting before” becomes a pre-existing condition defense. “I’m doing okay” becomes evidence that the injuries are not serious.

The right answer to a recorded statement request is to politely decline and to direct further communication to your attorney. This is true even if you do not have an attorney yet. Especially if you do not have an attorney yet.

Document everything, immediately.
Photographs of the scene, the hazard, the conditions, and the injuries — taken as soon as possible after the accident — are often the most valuable evidence in a premises liability or personal injury case. The wet floor gets mopped up. The broken step gets repaired. The torn carpeting gets replaced. The icy condition melts. Whatever caused the accident often disappears within hours or days.

If you can return to the scene safely, do so. Photograph from multiple angles. Photograph the surrounding area for context. Get the names and contact information of witnesses while their memories are fresh. Save any clothing or shoes involved in the accident. Preserve everything. The stronger the documentation at the start, the stronger the case at every later stage.

Get medical attention, and keep getting it.
Two patterns hurt personal injury cases more than any others. The first is the gap in treatment — an injured person who gets initial emergency care, then waits weeks or months before following up because they are hoping the injury will resolve on its own. The medical record reads as if the injury was minor; the defense argues exactly that. The second pattern is the inconsistent treatment — visits scattered across different providers without coordination, complaints that vary from visit to visit, no clear narrative of what is wrong and how it is progressing.

Consistent, ongoing medical treatment with a primary treating provider who can speak to the injury, the cause, and the prognosis is what builds a credible case. This is not advice to over-treat. It is advice to follow through on whatever treatment is actually medically indicated, document it carefully, and treat the medical record as the foundation of the case it eventually becomes.

Notice of Claim deadlines move fast.
If your accident involved property owned, operated, or maintained by the City of New York — sidewalks, parks, public schools, NYCHA buildings, public hospitals — you have only 90 days from the accident to file a Notice of Claim. The lawsuit itself must be filed within one year and 90 days. Miss the Notice of Claim, and the case is generally lost regardless of how strong the underlying facts are.

This catches people off guard regularly. A trip on a broken sidewalk in Queens may seem like a simple slip-and-fall, but if the sidewalk abuts city property or was maintained by the city, the 90-day clock is running from the moment of the accident. The same applies to school injuries, bus accidents, and incidents on city-owned premises.

Statutes of limitations vary.
For most personal injury claims against private parties in New York, the statute of limitations under CPLR 214 is three years from the date of the injury. Medical malpractice has a shorter period — generally two years and six months from the act or last treatment. Wrongful death has its own two-year statute. Claims against state and city entities have notice requirements as discussed above. The timeline that applies depends entirely on who the defendant is and what kind of claim it is.

Be careful what you post.
Insurance adjusters and defense attorneys check social media. A Facebook post showing the injured person at a barbecue, a vacation photo on Instagram, a check-in at a gym — any of it can be used to argue that the injuries are not as serious as claimed. The right approach during the pendency of a claim is to assume that everything posted publicly is going to be reviewed by the other side, and to act accordingly. Privacy settings help but are not a guarantee.

Settlement is not pressure-driven.
Insurance carriers make early offers. Sometimes the offers are reasonable; often they are not. The pressure to settle quickly — before treatment is complete, before the full extent of the injury is known, before the case is properly evaluated — is one of the biggest traps in personal injury work. A claim that is settled too early often leaves money on the table that the injured person will need months later when the medical picture becomes clearer.

The right time to settle is when the case can be fully valued — when treatment is complete or the long-term prognosis is clear, when liability has been thoroughly investigated, and when the negotiation can happen on actual facts rather than insurance company estimates of what the case might be worth.

If you have been injured in Queens, the early choices shape everything that follows. The right time to talk to a personal injury attorney is before the first call from the insurance adjuster, not after.

Blog

The Estate Planning Conversation Most Queens Families Never Have (Until It’s Too Late)

By : Brian McCaffrey Law Admin April 29, 2026April 29, 2026

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There is a particular kind of phone call that comes into a probate attorney’s office. A son or daughter calls because a parent has just died. The parent owned a house in Bayside, or Forest Hills, or Whitestone — a house that has appreciated dramatically over thirty or forty years. The parent did not have a will. There is a surviving spouse. There may be other children. There is no plan.

What follows is months in Queens County Surrogate’s Court, sometimes a year or longer, often involving family disagreements about who should administer the estate, who is entitled to what, and what happens to the house. The legal fees are real. The emotional cost is worse. And almost all of it could have been avoided with a few hours of estate planning while the parent was still alive.

If you are putting off the conversation about estate planning, here is the case for having it sooner rather than later, and what New York law actually requires.

Without a will, New York decides for you.
The technical name is “intestate succession,” and it is governed by Estates, Powers and Trusts Law Section 4-1.1. If you die without a will in New York, your assets are distributed according to a fixed statutory formula. The surviving spouse takes the first $50,000 plus half of the remaining estate. The children split the other half. If there is no spouse, the children take everything; if there are no children, the parents; if no parents, the siblings, and so on through more remote relatives.

This formula sounds reasonable until you apply it to a real Queens family. A surviving spouse may need the entire estate to keep the house and live comfortably; under intestate distribution, half of it goes to children. A blended family with children from prior marriages can produce results no one would have wanted — a stepchild who lived with the deceased for thirty years takes nothing, while a biological child the deceased had not seen in decades takes a full share. Same-sex couples who married after years of partnership can find that pre-marriage assets pass under rules designed for traditional family structures.

The formula is mechanical. It is not always fair.

The will is the foundation, not the ceiling.

A properly drafted will lets you decide who gets what, who manages the estate (the executor), who serves as guardian for minor children, and how specific bequests are handled. New York’s requirements for a valid will are spelled out in EPTL Section 3-2.1: the testator must be at least 18, of sound mind, the will must be in writing, signed at the end by the testator, witnessed by at least two witnesses who sign within thirty days of each other, and executed with certain formalities.

Holographic wills (handwritten, unwitnessed) are not valid in New York except in narrow circumstances involving members of the armed forces or mariners at sea. Wills signed without witnesses, signed in the wrong place, or executed without the formalities are routinely rejected by Surrogate’s Court. The technical requirements matter, and the cost of doing it correctly is far smaller than the cost of doing it wrong.

Why a trust often makes sense in New York.
A revocable living trust is an estate planning tool that holds your assets during your lifetime and distributes them at death without going through Surrogate’s Court. The advantages are real: probate is avoided, the distribution is private rather than public record, the process is faster, and the assets are easier to manage if you become incapacitated.

For Queens residents in particular, where home values often push estates above thresholds that complicate probate, a trust can save the estate substantial time and expense. The downside is upfront effort — the trust has to be funded, meaning that title to assets has to actually be transferred into the trust during your lifetime. A trust that is signed but never funded is just paper.

Healthcare proxies and powers of attorney are the documents you need before you die.
Estate planning is not just about what happens after death. The healthcare proxy authorizes someone to make medical decisions for you if you cannot make them yourself. A statutory short form power of attorney authorizes someone to handle your financial affairs. New York has specific statutory requirements for both — the power of attorney form in particular has to comply with General Obligations Law Section 5-1501B, and forms that are out of date or improperly executed can be rejected by banks and other institutions exactly when you need them most.

These documents are the ones that matter when someone is hospitalized, in cognitive decline, or temporarily incapacitated. Every adult in New York should have them. They are inexpensive to prepare and almost free to update.

The federal estate tax does not affect most people. The New York estate tax might.
Federal estate tax exemptions are high — in the multiple millions per individual — and most estates do not pay federal estate tax. New York’s estate tax exemption is lower, around $7 million for deaths in 2024, and it has a notable cliff: estates that exceed the exemption by more than 5 percent lose the entire exemption rather than just the excess. For Queens families with appreciated real estate, retirement accounts, and life insurance, the New York tax can be a meaningful concern even when the federal tax is not. Planning for it requires real attention, particularly for couples where coordinating exemptions across two estates can save substantial tax.

Beneficiary designations override your will.
This is the part of estate planning most people get wrong. Retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and certain bank accounts pass by beneficiary designation, regardless of what your will says. A 401(k) with an ex-spouse listed as beneficiary will pass to the ex-spouse even if your will leaves everything to your current spouse. Beneficiary designations need to be reviewed and updated whenever life changes — marriage, divorce, the birth of a child, a death in the family — and the work of doing so takes minutes.

If you have been putting off estate planning in Queens, the right time to handle it is when you do not need it yet. The cost of doing it now is small. The cost of not doing it can be enormous.

Automobile Accidents

The Crash on the Van Wyck: What Most Queens Drivers Don’t Know About New York’s No-Fault System

By : Brian McCaffrey Law Admin April 29, 2026April 29, 2026

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The first thing most people learn after a car accident in Queens is that almost nothing about the insurance process matches their expectations.

A driver gets rear-ended on the Van Wyck. Another gets hit by a turning vehicle on Queens Boulevard. A pedestrian gets clipped crossing Northern. The instinct in all three situations is the same: file a claim against the other driver’s insurance, get paid for the medical bills and lost time, move on. That is how it works in most states.

It is not how it works in New York.
If you have been in a motor vehicle accident in Queens, the first thing to understand is that New York is a no-fault insurance state, and the rules that govern what you can collect, when you can collect it, and from whom are different from anything you have probably encountered before. Here is the version of the system that is genuinely useful to know.

No-fault is the starting point — and it has nothing to do with fault.
Under New York Insurance Law Article 51, every motor vehicle registered in the state must carry no-fault insurance — also called Personal Injury Protection, or PIP. The minimum coverage is $50,000 per person, and that money pays your basic economic losses regardless of who caused the accident. Medical bills, lost wages up to a statutory cap, and certain other expenses come out of your own no-fault carrier first.

This catches drivers off guard. A pedestrian struck by a delivery truck assumes they will be claiming against the truck’s insurance. They will eventually, for some categories of damages. But the medical bills and the initial lost wages come out of the truck’s no-fault coverage — which the pedestrian, as the injured party, has the right to access even though they were not in the vehicle.

The 30-day deadline is the one most people miss.
To preserve your right to no-fault benefits, you must file an NF-2 application with the no-fault carrier within 30 days of the accident. Miss the deadline, and the carrier can deny the claim outright. Hospitals will sometimes file the form on behalf of the patient as part of their billing process; sometimes they do not, or they file incorrectly. The safest practice is to assume nothing has been filed and to handle the application yourself or through counsel.

The serious injury threshold is what gates everything else.
The trade-off for no-fault coverage is that New York limits when an injured person can sue the at-fault driver for pain and suffering. Under Insurance Law Section 5102(d), you can only pursue a personal injury lawsuit if your injuries meet one of the statutory categories of “serious injury” — which include death, dismemberment, significant disfigurement, fracture, loss of a fetus, permanent loss of use of a body organ, member, function or system, permanent consequential limitation of use, significant limitation of use, or a “90/180” category covering injuries that prevent normal activities for at least 90 of the first 180 days.

The 90/180 category is the one most contested in routine cases. Soft-tissue injuries — neck and back strains, the kind of injuries that come out of moderate-impact rear-end collisions — often hover around the threshold, and whether the case can proceed depends heavily on consistent medical treatment, documented limitations, and credible medical narratives. Defense attorneys and their insurance carriers fight serious injury threshold motions hard, and the cases that survive them are the ones where the medical record was built carefully from the start.

Comparative fault still applies.
Even when serious injury is established and a lawsuit is filed, New York follows a pure comparative negligence rule under CPLR 1411. Any percentage of fault attributed to the injured plaintiff reduces the recovery proportionally. Unlike many states, there is no threshold cutoff — a plaintiff who is 80 percent at fault can still recover 20 percent of their damages. The rule is generous to plaintiffs but it also means that establishing the other driver’s fault carefully matters.

SUM coverage is the protection people forget they have.
Supplementary Uninsured/Underinsured Motorist coverage — SUM — is the part of your auto policy that protects you when the at-fault driver does not have enough insurance to cover your damages. Given the volume of underinsured drivers on New York City roads, SUM coverage is the difference between full recovery and a partial one in many serious cases. The amount of SUM you carry is something worth checking on your own policy before anything happens.

The 90-day notice for city vehicles.
If the accident involved a vehicle owned or operated by the City of New York or one of its agencies — an MTA bus, a sanitation truck, an NYPD vehicle, a Department of Education school bus — different rules apply. A Notice of Claim must be filed with the city within 90 days of the accident, and a lawsuit must be filed within one year and 90 days. Miss either deadline, and the claim is generally barred. These cases come up regularly in Queens given the density of city operations, and the deadlines are unforgiving.

If you have been in an accident in Queens, the early decisions — about what gets filed, when, and how the medical record gets built — shape everything that follows. The system rewards preparation and punishes assumptions.