CASTLE VILLAGE

Mortgages almost always come with prepayment penalties. Otherwise, borrowers and lenders would both be at the mercy of each others’ whims, borrowers cashing in when rates are low, or lenders demanding repayment when they are high. Sometimes, however, interest rates are so low that the prepayment penalty is very small when compared to future savings. That’s when you want to refinance. Castle Village, for example, made the hard choice and came out ahead.

Updated 3:20 p.m. — A federal appeals court has granted a victory to shareholders of the Castle Village co-op in Manhattan, reversing a lower court's ruling that had disallowed residents from claiming assessments as tax-deductible casualty losses following a 2005 landslide that had devastated the property. The ruling has far-reaching implications for co-ops that suffer catastrophic damage to common areas, and subsequently level shareholder assessments for rebuilding,