The foreclosure crisis has caused a jump in the number of court-appointed receivers for distressed properties in New York, and politically connected lawyers are benefiting but it remains unclear why judges are selecting some of these lawyers, and whether the fees are being well spent, according to an front-page article by Cara Buckley in today's edition of The New York Times.

Over all, the number of receivers appointed by judges to oversee distressed properties in the city jumped to 284 last year from 47 in 2007, records show, the article said.

When a building goes into foreclosure, a judge appoints a lawyer as a receiver who acts a property's temporary landlord during the process. Receivers are entitled to fees that typically amount to 5 percent of a property's revenues. Judges can award less than 5 percent, but usually do not.

The court-appointed lawyers in turn usually hire property managers and other lawyers to assist in overseeing the properties. The receivers do not pay out of their own pockets for the costs of the property managers and other lawyers. That money comes from the properties' revenues. "This is why mortgagees hate foreclosures," said Harold Shultz, a senior fellow at the Citizens Housing and Planning Council, a nonprofit research group. "During this process all these people are sucking money out of the building."

"In 2009, a judge in Manhattan had a lucrative appointment to hand out: oversight of a diamond district building that was drifting into foreclosure. Nearly 600 people in Manhattan had been approved for such work. But the job went to a lawyer named Mark D. Lebow, who is the husband of Patricia E. Harris, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg's most trusted aide. Since then, Mr. Lebow has earned $352,000 in fees, more than $5,000 a week, according to court records," the article said.

"Paul Vallone, a scion of one of Queens's most powerful political families, earned nearly $17,000 for one assignment. Howard R. Vargas, a former commissioner of the Taxi and Limousine Commission, was awarded $28,000 for three cases. Marc Landis, a Democratic district leader and member of the transition team of the new state attorney general, Eric T. Schneiderman, was compensated $22,000 for supervising three buildings," the article continued.

The article said that "city officials said they were considering state legislation to require people seeking to become receivers to be vetted by the city's Department of Housing Preservation and Development. Receivers are now vetted only by the courts."