John is a founding partner in the Okun & Churneftsky, LLP firm. John serves clients throughout Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, Westchester, and Long Island. His years of experience has enabled him to form hundreds of connections with other Real Estate Professionals, including Real Estate Brokers, Mortgage Professionals, Home Inspectors/Engineers, Architects, Tax Specialists and 1031 Intermediaries to offer you all comprehensive services for your residential and commercial transactions.
He handles all residential co-op, condominium and home closings, along with all forms of commercial transactions involving the purchase, sale and financing of properties and developments. He has extensive experience in negotiating and drafting residential, store, office, retail, triple net, and loft leases on behalf of both owners/developers and tenants. John serves as closing agent for co-ops throughout New York City, Queens and Brooklyn and also serves as institutional lending counsel for a number of lenders. He has years of experience representing lenders in all types of transactions, including residential and commercial closings, document preparation to ensure that the client’s rights are fully protected and in all aspects of lending transactions.
John also represents and assists his clients in all aspects of business formation, management and development, ranging from the creation of a new entity to the sale or purchase of an ongoing business enterprise. John has assisted his clients with contract review and negotiation, employment agreements, shareholder and buy-sell agreements, leases, property acquisitions and compliance with legal and business formalities. John is also well-versed in representing clients in all forms of business transactions, small and large.
John has many years of experience representing owners of Laundromats in the New York, Brooklyn, Queens, Bronx, Westchester and all of Long Island. John has handled countless purchases and sales of existing Laundromats, negotiation of leases with Landlords for use and occupancy of new Laundromats, assisted with the obtaining of financing and the formation of business entities for the operation of Laundromat businesses. John’s years of experience in this area has enabled him to form hundreds of connections with Laundromat appraisers, financial analysts, specialty lenders and equipment suppliers enabling John to better serve his clients in this niche area of representation.
John also has extensive experience litigating civil, commercial and real estate matters in the New York Supreme Court and Civil Court. He has prosecuted and is well-versed in all Landlord-Tenant matters including non-primary residence, sublet and assignment, succession, illusory tenancy and Yellowstone injunctions. He has substantial knowledge and training in other areas, including second-hand smoke nuisance litigation, defamation, libel, Surrogate’s Court proceedings,and enforcement of by-laws and restrictive covenants in homeowners’ and property owners’ associations.
John also has knowledge, understanding and familiarity with rent control law, rent stabilization and rent regulation and has handled rent overcharge, service complaints, luxury deregulation and Major Capital Improvement (MCI) rent increase applications before the Division of Housing and Community Renewal (DHCR).
His practice areas also include estate planning, trusts and estate administration.
John is admitted to practice before all of the trial courts and appellate courts in the state of New York. He also is admitted to the bar of the following federal courts: Supreme Court of the United States, and the U.S. District Courts for the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York.
He is a contributor to real estate law publications such as Landlord v. Tenant and Apartment Law Insider and has been published in the New York Journal.