Corcoran Found Negligent in Park Slope Condo Sale
What do you do if you’re trying to sell an apartment with water leaks but don’t want potential buyers to know? Just make sure not to show it on rainy days! That’s the tactic some Corcoran agents were accused of in a suit involving the sale of a condo unit at 357 4th Street in…
What do you do if you’re trying to sell an apartment with water leaks but don’t want potential buyers to know? Just make sure not to show it on rainy days! That’s the tactic some Corcoran agents were accused of in a suit involving the sale of a condo unit at 357 4th Street in Park Slope, and now the firm itself has been found “grossly negligent” and fined $35,000 by the judge in the case for failing to preserve and hand over emails that would allegedly confirm that Corcoran agents cancelled appointments on rainy days. Meanwhile, the case itself, which involves almost a million dollars in potential construction fixes and total damages of $5 million, continues on.
State Supreme Court Rules Corcoran “Negligent” [TRD]
E-mail Shows Couple’s Suit vs. Corcoran Group Holds Water [NYDN]
corcoran people are for the most part shady people. i have 4 deals with them
and they were always trying to hide facts from me.
there is only i worked with who was honnest.
ethics is not in their vocabulary.
the problem is that they have most of the best listings in brooklyn.
so you have to deal with them. just never believe one word they say even if they have nice smiles and dress well. it’s all a lie.
but remember, these large brokerages in Brooklyn (including the brokers and agents) follow the RENBY rules of ethical conduct – whatever this really means. A good broker knows what is proper ethical and legal conduct with repect to brokering real estate transactions. REBNY is simply a a trade group to give the illusion that such brokers are engaging in the highest standard. In reality, it appears to be an “insurance policy for the “mistakes” made by broker/agents. A broker should be under a higher level of scrutiny by New York State licensing. If security brokers have to take many high level exams to trade; perhaps a real estate broker must also be under the same obligation; and , as we all know, this is still not enoughj protection. Remember, for the most part, a real estate broker is repesenting a buyer/seller in one of the most valuable assets they will ever own.
NEVER never Ever ever trust a broker from CORCORAN…that firm is filled with crooks and liars. They will say anything to get a listing or a buyer.
Buyer ~ Seller Beware!
They helped me out last year when I was looking and ended up buying through another broker. Enough Said!
I say bye bye to those agents 🙁
without debating new vs. old, it needs to be acknowledged that there are terrible basement flooding problems all over. what is required by the city to get the C of O is not enough to handle actual rain flow, flood zone issues, and a super crappy sewer system.
in my house in PS, i had 2 sump pumps and 2 pits in the basement and still had minor flooding after re-working it 3 times. final solution was deep pits with the pumps protected so debris couldn’t short them out, but did not prevent water from coming up in severe rain conditions. had an architect and 2 contractors on that one. have friends with a house in the slope that cannot fix their severe flooding after many years. this is the kind of sh*t that i was happy to leave behind moving from a house to a condo, fyi…
in current space, we added two different french drains to our backyard (we have a yard with our condo) in addition to the drain the sponsor put in. also, our building re-built the pits and put in different sump pumps in the front of the building (sponsor paid for it and managed). the sponsor had followed the law, but it wasn’t enough. this was 2 1/2 years ago, and now it’s really tight.
meanwhile, flooding from the roof can be gutter oriented and not just a bad roof. had that in my PS place too. took re-doing the gutters to fix that. that problem plagued me for 5 f’ing years! again, had an architect and this time, 3 contractors helping to find/fix leaks. did replace roof immediately after moving in btw. seriously do not miss owning a home! hahaha
basically, water is TOUGH.
Yes, Denton, however that does not change the fact that this finding of gross negligence pertains only to the failure to preserve/turn over the subject emails. Only one was turned over, the rest disappearing into the wind. Even if Corco knew there was some flooding on rainy days, it is still up to the buyer to prove that Corco knew just how bad the flooding was, that Corco owed them a duty to disclose said flooding, and that they failed to do so. Until the buyer proves all of those things, it isn’t fair to say that Corco is in the wrong here. Yes, it is likely that they are, but the lawyer in me feels that the language used in Mr. B’s thread title etc. needs to be precise.
c’mon benson, you know better than that. This is not a ‘start-up problem’ like a faulty AC unit. And this is not, as you state, ‘new construction’. I wouldn’t call it that anyway, it’s an existing building.
Unless that video is a complete fabrication, it is absolutely impossible that the developer didn’t know his cheap-ass attempt to convert a wet basement into living space would go well. That basement must have flooded dozens of times when he was doing his conversion.
And, the owner is not just going after the sponsor, he’s going after him in court, which means that the sponsor doesn’t see it as a start-up problem, he’s done gone and washed his hands of it. He knows it’s not fixable for any amount of money that will allow him to make a profit, so he’s just going to drag it out until he can send his money to Switzerland or file for bankruptcy.
I’ve been thru this nightmare two blocks away and it’s a nightmare that will never be resolved until they turn it back into a basement and put in some sump pumps.
Snappy, did you read the article in the Daily News? It seems to me there is an actual email, probably produced by the plaintiff, that indicates Corcoran did indeed cancel appts to show that property if it was raining.
Walks like a duck, talks like a duck . . . . so on – and one must believe this gamesmanship runs the corporate upstream – – unless all senior management conduct the brokerage business with eyes closed; and unfortunately, this should not come as any surprise to anyone – especially during the boom years. The tides will turn.
WOW.
Anne-Marie Gatz and Adam Pacelli are the same two people who sold my wife and I our apartment in Park Slope. They basically told us whatever we wanted to hear, whether based in fact or not. After speaking to the seller at the closing we discovered that they had lied through their teeth during the entire process, and that all the countless delays, extra payments and stress was manufactured by them. They were so misleading we came very close to suing them for their deceit.
They withheld giving us the condo’s application to fill out until the day before closing, made up stories about things being included in the sale that weren’t, and delayed the closing by three hours. In the end the seller chewed them out at the closing once we all realized who was the source.
I am glad they’re getting their due. I just wish it involved jail time. Leaks like this can cause serious catastrophic problems to a building, enough to cause a collapse.
I stand corrected than.