Biography

Douglas Heller has over 40 years of transactional real estate experience in the areas of cooperatives and condominiums, development, lending and restructuring. He represents developers, sponsors, tenant associations, cooperative and condominium boards and institutional and private lenders. He has drafted many offering plans and has significant litigation experience representing developers, condominiums and cooperatives.

Earlier in his career, Douglas was a Senior Attorney and Special Deputy Attorney General with the New York Attorney General's office, where he was involved in reviewing offering plans, investigations, litigation and mediation. At its request, Douglas has consulted with the Attorney General's Office on numerous policy memoranda covering a variety of topics.

Douglas was a member of the New York State Bar Association committee that wrote the standard form cooperative apartment contract of sale in 1989, and the committee that rewrote and updated it in 2001. He is also a member of the New York City Bar Association committee that wrote the 2015 standard form condominium unit contract of sale, and is currently drafting a new standard form. He has chaired a number of New York State Bar Association committees in a variety of areas relating to condominium and cooperative law and has lectured for the Practicing Law Institute, the New York State Bar Association and other organizations including several local law schools. Currently, Doug is a member of the New York Attorney General’s Real Estate Finance Bureau Working Group where he advises on various matters.

Douglas has also written numerous articles for condominium and cooperative trade publications, and frequently appears in The New York Times' Real Estate Q&A column, where he helps to answer readers' questions about condos and co-ops.