In the regulated world of escrow, where is the transparency?

Escrow is up to its neck in regulations.

Yet, kickbacks within the industry are common and enforcement is difficult. The California Department of Financial Protection & Innovation’s Escrow Advisory Committee has said as much.

Still, just last week more allegations of kickback schemes reared their heads in a lawsuit and countersuit between former Portfolio Escrow managing director Maria Trangelo-Molina and Portfolio, which is owned by Douglas Elliman.

Buried in the mudslinging is Portfolio’s allegation that Trangelo-Molina offered kickbacks to a number of local agents, Oppenheim Group’s Jason Oppenheim. Oppenheim is not a defendant in either case and told The Real Deal last year he engaged in a “legitimate structure” that was reviewed by accountants and attorneys. The allegations mirror those made last year by Portfolio Escrow against its founder, William Grasska.

The Grasska-Portfolio litigation was quietly settled in December. Maybe Trangelo-Molina and the litigation with Portfolio take a similar route.

Lost in all the lawsuits is the subject of kickbacks. Who is regulating all of this and is there adequate transparency for consumers?

The answer to the first question is in the California Department of Financial Protection & Innovation, which has repeatedly told TRD across different inquiries made in the last year that it will not confirm any ongoing investigations.

The subject of visibility of enforcement actions cropped up in December’s Escrow Advisory Committee during which committee member Barry Sender of Village Escrow Services questioned why the DFPI could not make public statements about alleged violations. The idea was to make it known the DFPI takes enforcement seriously.

Maybe that would be one part of the solution to the challenge of enforcing the law around kickbacks. The committee acknowledged in that same December meeting it’s a “recurring concern” for the industry and it continues out of either “ignorance or deliberate noncompliance,” according to the meeting minutes.

Committee members also admitted the challenge in enforcement with cash kickbacks made discreetly, offering a barely visible trail of evidence for investigators.

“Investigating these violations is challenging,” the committee’s notes said, “as companies continuously find new ways to structure kickbacks to avoid detection.”

Coldwell Banker Realty, Beverly Hills Estates get new leadership

There’s big news out of Coldwell Banker Realty: Tom Dunlap will be stepping down as managing broker of the Beverly Hills and Hancock Park offices. His successor is Matthew Clayman, who comes from the Beverly Hills Estates.

These are major moves for Dunlap and Clayman for different reasons.

Dunlap is an industry veteran, who served as president of Jon Douglas Real Estate Company’s mortgage subsidiary Jon Douglas Financial. He was also vice president and general manager of Prudential California Realty, executive vice president and branch manager of John Aaroe Group and broker associate at Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties. He’s been in his role at Coldwell Banker for nearly a decade, overseeing an office that includes super agents such as Jade Mills and Joyce Rey.

For Clayman, his new gig, which starts Aug. 4, is a move to a much larger brokerage where he’ll be overseeing more than double the agent headcount of a legacy real estate firm.

“This type of role requires a mastery of a very challenging and varied skillset. Matthew has all of those skills in abundance,” Colin Keenan, Westside Estate Agency executive vice president and general manager, said. “He is a true professional. They could not have chosen better.”

Meanwhile, Beverly Hills Estates has brought on Mitch Stever to be its broker of record and general manager, succeeding Clayman.

Stever joins from Side Real Estate. He’ll now be tasked with steering the Beverly Hills Estates into what the brokerage said will be its “next chapter.”

Fire recovery contracts runaround

How many dashboards does it take for a city to be transparent?

Let’s add that to the list of questions piling on when it comes to contractors getting paid to help the city of Los Angeles in its recovery from the Palisades fire in January.

Residents and even some on the City Council can’t get a straight answer on how much Hagerty Consulting and AECOM are being paid and for what. That’s why the Ad Hoc Committee for LA Recovery is now waiting for the full council to pass a motion to extract that information from the Chief Legislative Analyst, Chief Administrative Office and Emergency Management Department. The council’s been on recess since July 2 and doesn’t return until Tuesday.

In doing the reporting around the quest for basic information on the contracts, a tale of two dashboards emerged. One is up and running, developed by Hagerty to show the progress of site cleanups in the Palisades. It’s a basic tool to give people — most importantly residents whose homes were damaged or destroyed in the fires — a sense of what’s being done in real time.

There’s yet another dashboard that the Los Angeles Department of Building and Safety was asked to create to show the status of permits. That job’s apparently stalled out as Mayor Karen Bass’ office works on this project to ensure the dashboard is easy to use and understand.

At this point, with the six-month anniversary of the wildfires in the past, might the city simply consider a Substack or Mailchimp newsletter with two lines: permit applications and permits approved?

Mayors offer local take on CEQA

Local governments are scrambling to make sense of the latest exemptions to the California Environmental Quality Act.

Most would agree the changes are a win for housing broadly. Whether there’s a raft of development waiting in the pipeline that’ll get the greenlight based on these exemptions, it’s too soon to tell.

A panel held in Costa Mesa last week of Orange County government leaders seemed hesitant to call the changes a win from their standpoint. Their comments pointed to the larger and ongoing debate around local versus state control and who ends up having to foot the responsibility for execution and compliance of new laws.

Brea Mayor Pro Tem Cecilia Hupp said some of Assembly Bill 130 and Senate Bill 131, which were signed into law at the end of June, is “good.” Still, there’s another point to consider.

“Local control is a huge issue for us. All of us,” she said. “And the problem that we have is when these bills pass, they pass on a one-size-fits-all basis. And we all know that it doesn’t apply to a lot of our cities. Much of what passes in Sacramento applies to the Bay Area. It doesn’t apply to our communities here.”

Hilton Hilton rising?

Among some of the more recent headlines for LA resi was the $77.5 million listing of Cary Grant’s former Beverly Hills estate.

Yes, it’s a big price tag for 9966 Beverly Grove Drive and most reports seized on the dollar amount and property lineage. One detail that was missed? The listing agents. Christie’s International Real Estate’s Aaron Kirman is co-listing it with Hilton Hilton’s Denise Moreno and Gordon MacGeachy.

Rick Hilton, co-founder of Hilton & Hyland, launched Hilton Hilton in March 2023 with son Barron Hilton and Barron’s wife Tessa Hilton.

The brokerage hasn’t made the news cycle much since its launch — until now.

The Cary Grant listing came on the heels of Barron and Tessa, who are co-CEOs, representing Barron’s sister Paris Hilton in last month’s purchase of 71 Beverly Park for $63.1 million, marking a notable closing for the young brokerage.

That deal combined with the latest listing leads one to wonder what more is in store for the brokerage, which now has a headcount of 15.

Gene Simmons scoop

A Benedict Canyon home once owned by Gene Simmons got real on price and found a buyer last week.

TRD broke the news that Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices California Properties’ Todd Marks represented a local industrial developer in the $28 million purchase of 2650 Benedict Canyon Drive in Beverly Hills.

The property was sold by an entity managed by Max Nobel, which bought the home from Simmons in 2021 for $16 million. The estate then underwent extensive renovations to transform it into its current modern farmhouse aesthetic.

The closing is a far cry from the $48 million the home was first listed for in 2023 and was last priced at $31.8 million by Carolwood Estates’ Alexis Perry, James Harris and David Parnes, in addition to Westside Estate Agency’s Kurt Rappaport.