Jury Finds United Homes Committed Fraud

The Real Deal reports that a jury awarded more than $1 million in damages to a group of homeowners that brought a lawsuit against the firm United Homes, finding that the company committed fraud in the way it flipped properties in neighborhoods like Bedford Stuyvesant and Bushwick. The suit said that United Homes, the firm’s owner Yaron Hershco, Allied Mortgage Banking, Olympia Mortgage and attorney Benjamin Turner set up a “one-stop shop” to lure first-time buyers and sell them overpriced properties: “The lead plaintiff, a Brooklyn woman named Sandra Barkley, alleged she bought a home at 557 Hancock Street in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn in 2002, for $359,000, only three months after United Homes had bought the property out of foreclosure for $153,000, did a minimal amount of renovation and then had it appraised for an inflated value.” According to South Brooklyn Legal Services, the loans on the properties were “never sustainable.” The suit, which was filed by eight African-American homeowners, also included allegations of discrimination, but the jury cleared United of the charge, and the defense attorney told The Real Deal that his client had been vindicated: “This is America; you can buy something for $10 and sell it for $20.”
8 Brooklyn Homeowners Win Fraud Case Against Yaron Herscho’s United Homes [TRD]
Photo from PropertyShark.