Occupy Spring St.: Trump SoHo to Give 90% Refunds on Deposits
By: Steve Cuozzo
November 3rd, 2011
They cried “fraud!” — and now, a bunch of well-heeled apartment hunters will get a staggering 90 percent of their deposits back on posh pads they intended to buy at the troubled Trump SoHo condo-hotel because they relied on the developers’ “deceptive” sales figures.
In a federal lawsuit settled yesterday, woulda-been buyers of 10 condos — including former French soccer star Olivier Dacourt — will get back 90 percent of $5.197 million total deposits they put down on $16.914 million worth of David Rockwell- designed luxury apartments, court documents show.
Their suit claimed the sponsors “fraudulently misrepresented” the number of apartments that had previously been sold at Trump SoHo.
The sponsors are Bayrock Group and the Sapir Organization. Although the Trump Organization manages the 46- story tower and is a joint-venture partner with Bayrock and Sapir, Donald Trump is not the developer, nor is he involved in the 391-unit condo conversion.
The buyers sued last February, claiming apartments had been advertised as being “30, 40, 50, or 60 percent” sold when in fact only 16 percent had been sold at the time the conversion plan was declared defective.
The disgruntled buyers were represented by Adam Leitman Bailey, the lawyer who has won large refunds on deposits for prospective purchasers at other high-profile condo projects.
Bailey said, “We are not superheros — we simply got Trump SoHo to do the right thing in a very difficult case.”