Trending
![KeyBank sued over derailed $122M deal for Skims-leased Hollywood offices](https://static.therealdeal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Kingsbarn-sues-over-derailed-122M-deal-for-Skims-leased-Hollywood-offices_Main-150x94.jpg)
![Fifth Avenue office tower owned by Mexican banking scion heads to special servicing](https://static.therealdeal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Fifth-Avenue-office-tower-owned-by-Mexican-banking-scion-heads-to-special-servicing-f-150x106.jpg)
![“Not even distressed” rent-stabilized property sells for peanuts](https://static.therealdeal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ft_NY_Inwood-Rent-Stabilized-Sale-1-150x106.png)
![Tatiana Pino now owns Century Homebuilders after Sergio Pino’s death, her attorney says](https://static.therealdeal.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/ft_MIA_Tatiana-Pino-Century-Builders-Group-150x106.png)
Judge to Blavatnik: You should know what a contract is
Court tosses music mogul’s suit over verbal $79M deal for UES townhouse
![From 19 East 64th Street, David Wildenstein and Len Blavatnik (Credit: Getty Images)](https://static.therealdeal.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/19-East-64th-Street-David-Wildenstein-Len-Blavatnik.jpg)
Does a phone call constitute a binding sales agreement? Music mogul Len Blavatnik thinks so, but a New York judge begs to differ and tossed his lawsuit over an Upper East Side townhouse deal.
Blavatnik sued art heir David Wildenstein, claiming he reneged on a verbal promise to sell him his family’s Upper East Side 20,500-square-foot townhouse at 19 East 64th Street for $79 million. The property sold to another bidder for $81 million.
“Your extraordinarily sophisticated and well-heeled client… relied on an oral telephone conversation,” Judge Shirley Werner Kornreich told Blavatnik’s attorneys. “He clearly knows that is not sufficient for a deal.”
According to the New York Post, Blavatnik plans to appeal Kornreich’s decision.
Back in 2014, Qatar’s government signed a contract to buy the townhouse for $90 million, but ultimately walked away from the deal. [NYP] — Konrad Putzier