Woman Who Bought NYC Penthouse Sues Corcoran Group Over Doorman

• A woman said she was deceived into believing a penthouse she purchased had a full-time doorman.
• The unnamed woman is suing The Corcoran Group, one of its agents, and the seller of the property.
• She said the agency tried to hide the fact that there was a virtual doorman in the evenings.

A woman is suing a New York City real-estate agency that she said tricked her into purchasing a $19 million penthouse without a full-time doorman, the New York Post initially reported.

In a complaint filed Wednesday with the Manhattan Supreme Court and obtained by Insider, a legal representative for the unnamed woman said she purchased the penthouse at 37 Warren Street, Tribeca, in March.

The buyer — who is described in the legal document as a single mother of three — terminated the contract in August and demanded a refund of her $1.9 million deposit after learning that the seller and brokers had concealed that there was a part-time doorman and virtual doorman in the evenings, according to the complaint. Now, the complaint says, she’s seeking punitive damages in excess of $2.5 million as well as the reimbursement of her legal fees.

The complaint was filed by Kara Dille, an accountant who runs the unidentified woman’s estate, according to the New York Post. It names The Corcoran Group, Catherine L Juraciah (an agent at the real-estate firm), and Zoelle LLC (the seller of the property).

According to the complaint, The Corcoran Group and Zoelle LLC represented the doorman in an “intentionally false” way with the clear intention to “fraudulently induce” the woman into purchasing the home.

The complaint says The Corcoran Group misrepresented the property by writing that there was a doorman in the online listing and on various other websites that published the information. It adds that the agency and its representatives “went so far as to position themselves in front of the virtual doorman interface” during viewings of the property so she could not ask questions about what it was and why it would be required if there was a full-time doorman.  

The buyer would never have purchased the property had she known there was no full-time doorman, according to the complaint. “After all, the settlor-beneficiary sought a home where she, a single mother with three children, could reside in comfort and security knowing that there was a fulltime doorman,” the document reads.

Howard M. Brickner, an attorney for Zoelle LLC, wrote in a letter to the court that the seller isn’t responsible for the alleged actions or written statements of the real-estate agency, the New York Post reports. 

“The Seller is not liable or bound in any manner by any verbal or written statements, representations, real estate broker ‘set-ups’ or information pertaining to the above premises furnished by a real estate broker nor by any agent, employee, servant or other person,” the letter states, according to the New York Post.

Howard M. Brickner, Catherine L Juraciah (the agent at The Corcoran Group named in the complaint), and Steven I. Fox, an attorney at New York-based law firm Wrobel Markham LLP representing Dille, did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.