From the July issue: “Is Mr. Green coming to the closing?” Years ago, a young lawyer in New York heard that question from a veteran attorney and didn’t know what to make of it. Was he asking about another lawyer, perhaps an investor? It turns out the fellow was talking about a potentially illegal participant in a real estate transaction: cash. While it is by no means against the law to use cash in transactions to pay brokers’ fees or even to buy buildings, it is illegal to pay cash and not report the transaction for income taxes or property transfer taxes.

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From the July issue: “Is Mr. Green coming to the closing?” Years ago, a young lawyer in New York heard that question from a veteran attorney and didn’t know what to make of it. Was he asking about another lawyer, perhaps an investor? It turns out the fellow was talking about a potentially illegal participant in a real estate transaction: cash. While it is by no means against the law to use cash in transactions to pay brokers’ fees or even to buy buildings, it is illegal to pay cash and not report the transaction for income taxes or property transfer taxes.

[more]

Paolo Zampolli is using a unique strategy to entice foreign clients to
purchase property: the Italian broker and founder of ID Model Management takes them apartment hunting

around Manhattan on his $800,000 boat, according to the New York Post.
“This is a way to give them a real feel of New York and the skyline
and where they want to be,” Zampolli said. From the boat, clients
point out the buildings they like. Then, Zampolli arranges a tour of
apartments for sale in those buildings. Since the boat tours began a
couple of weeks ago, Zampolli said he has already sold a $3.6 million
apartment in architect Jean Nouvel’s new building at 100 11th Avenue on

the West Side. While some brokers take clients on boat tours of
oceanfront mansions in Florida, he says the sales tactic is new for Manhattan.

So far, designer Roberto Cavalli has been on board. [Post]

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Two luxury cooperatives in the Gramercy Park neighborhood worth a combined $25 million are tied up in a legal action brought by a bank in Iceland that claims a former shareholder and former company executives looted it for more than $2 billion.

Glitnir Bank, based in Reykjavik, Iceland, accused the investor Jon Asgeir Johannesson and former bank executives of raiding the bank in 2007 and 2008 to prop up their own failing companies, in a lawsuit filed in New York State Supreme Court yesterday.

The bank won an order from a court in London freezing Johannesson’s assets, including co-ops in the neighboring apartment buildings Gramercy Park Hotel at 50 Gramercy Park North and 2 Lexington Avenue, according to information from PropertyShark.com. [more]

Paramount’s Paolo Zampolli (l) and Paul Massey of Massey Knakal

The Italian-born founder of model agency ID Model Management and a regular in the
Post’s Page Six column, Paolo Zampolli, filed suit in New York State
Supreme Court today claiming he was cheated out of more than $200,000
in commissions after he introduced a buyer for the property at 31 Bond
Street in Noho and was not listed as a broker on the sale. Zampolli, a licensed salesperson with Paramount Realty Group of
America, claims in the suit that he was the procuring broker that
brought his client, an Italian named Cristina Calori, to buy the
property at 31 Bond. The seller, a Japanese corporation called Heian
Bunka Center, which owns the six-story mixed-use building, was
represented by Massey Knakal Realty Services. Calori ended up going into contract on the property, with an asking
price of $8.5 million, but not listing Zampolli as the broker. The sale
is expected to close soon, the suit says. Zampolli, through Paramount, is suing Calori; her company Monster Real
Estate; Massy Knakal; and the Japanese firm Heian Bunka Center for a
total of $212,500, which represents half of a 5 percent commission, on
allegations including breach of contract and interfering with
contracts. Zampolli rejected the assessment by several brokers that he needed a
written contract with Calori — which he did not have — to prevail. “That is nonsense. [Brokers holding such a view] are amateurs. We will
have a judge rule on the legality of this case. That is why we went to
Supreme Court,” he said. [more]

Tenants at a $26,000-per-month three-bedroom apartment at the Gramercy Park Hotel have filed suit against their landlords for allegedly not following through on promised amenities and furnishings. Paolo Zampolli, the former head of ID Model Management, is suing landlords Jon Johannesson and Ingibjorg Palmadottir at 50 Gramercy Park North, a married pair well-known as one of Iceland’s most posh couples, for $52,000. Among the claims in the suit is that the high-end kitchen they were promised turned out to be an Ikea-quality particleboard mess that broke down after eight months and that the landlords didn’t make necessary fixes to a cracked window and malfunctioning heating and cooling system. The landlords have not yet commented on the suit.

The Real Deal has ranked the top residential listing agents of the week based on the highest priced residential deals filed with the city.

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