Court Allows Partition Sale of Bed Stuy Home in Family for 75 Years

Ayisha Doyle, like her mother and her children, was raised in the grand brownstone on Jefferson Avenue in Bed Stuy. She still calls the house home, one of five generations of her family who have done so since her great-grandparents purchased the 1880s single-family house in the 1940s.

With her mother, Phillipa Doyle, she has paid off the mortgage, paid all the bills, tended to its maintenance, and looked after it for future generations of their family. Hers is one of a handful of families who have been on the block, in the middle of the Bedford Historic District, for more than 50 years.

But now that ownership, and her family’s future in the house, is up in the air. Her estranged uncle—her mother’s only brother, who the family said they haven’t spoken to in years, who had never shown any interest in the house, and whose last known location was in Australia — allegedly transferred a 75 percent stake in the house in 2017 to Long Island-based property investor Theodore Zucker.

Last month, Zucker forced what is known as a partition sale and bought the entirety of the house at 234 Jefferson Avenue at an auction on June 6 for $1.7 million after being given the go-ahead by the courts following a six-year legal battle between his LLC and the family, Ayisha said. The sale has not yet closed.

The situation is one of many in Brooklyn, elsewhere in New York City, and across the country where real estate speculators acquire properties in rapidly gentrifying Black and brown neighborhoods in complex transactions – sometimes legal, sometimes not – without the awareness or consent of longtime owners. Often the owners lack the financial resources to defend themselves in court, they say. Even in cases where fraud is suspected, the burden of proof – and the cost of litigation – can fall to the longtime owners, who risk losing their homes and financial assets even if they did nothing wrong.

Partition sales are one method for LLCs to acquire property that real estate attorneys and elected officials say they are seeing more of lately. Investors will contact far-flung heirs, buy their shares (often for low amounts), and force a sale of the property. Ultimately, the sales can lead to the eviction of any remaining family members who live in the home. Partition sales are legal and are not deed fraud in and of themselves, but there have been instances of alleged deed fraud in partition sales.

Speculators involved in partition sales have in the past told The City their practices are legal and help far-flung relatives realize the value of their fractional ownership.

A call out of the blue

The Doyles’ issues started back in 2017 when Ayisha says she got a phone call from a man telling her he’d purchased the stake in her family house from her estranged uncle, Walter Giles. The call came not long after Ayisha and her mother had finished paying off the mortgage on the four-story brownstone, she said.

The deed for the house was in her grandmother’s name, and when she died in 2007 the family believed the executor, a friend, would probate the estate according to the will. However, it turned out that never happened. When Ayisha received the phone call from the investor, her mother immediately started probate proceedings, but the attorney for that, too, has never been able to contact Giles, Ayisha said.

According to city records, Zucker paid Giles $300,000 for an unspecified fractional share through the company Arlo 67 LLC, and there is a deed apparently signed by Giles and notarized by a notary in Australia. Brownstoner attempted to reach the notary, but did not hear back.

The Doyles and their attorney, Kanika Sloan, who they retained as soon as they got the phone call, have questions about how Zucker was able to track down Giles given they hadn’t been able to. They have also asked to see proof of payment, such as a wire transfer or cashed check from Zucker to Giles, so they could work toward a possible settlement, they said.

Three of Zucker’s attempts to force a sale through the courts were rejected by different judges, who ruled in favor of the Doyles each time. The court found Arlo 67 LLC does not own any share in the property, because no share had ever transferred to Walter Giles. Because the will had not been probated, Giles had no share to sell, the judges said.

Each time Zucker and his attorney Charles Cuneo were allowed to bring a new case with new information and continue the attempt to force a sale. The fourth time, Arlo 67 LLC won on a technicality known as a default judgment, allowing the sale, because Philippa didn’t appear. She said she wasn’t served properly, but Judge Richard Montileone ruled she hadn’t proved that.

Sloan, the Doyles’ lawyer, called the default judgment “a tragedy.”

“I don’t think we should be able to sell a home on a default judgment unless the defendants never responded,” Sloan said, adding the Doyles had responded to every motion.

In the Doyles’ case, Sloan said there is the “very real question of where do we go?” meaning they could wind up homeless.

An appeal, which can cost tens of thousands of dollars, wasn’t an option for the Doyles financially, especially given the amount they had already spent defending the house.

Near the end of last year, after the Doyles had come to the difficult realization that they wouldn’t be able to file an appeal on the order of sale, they thought they had a breakthrough. A judge ruled they and Arlo 67 LLC had to have a settlement conference, now required by a 2019 law, to determine how heirs would be affected by a partition sale and make sure things are fair. The process can include a report from the mediator and then a hearing in front of a judge about how to move forward.

However, the conference didn’t result in a report or hearing as they had hoped, or in follow up that took the mediation into account, Sloan and the Doyles said. (An attorney not involved in the case told Brownstoner cases get a hearing if the summary of facts is disputed, but that would be negated in the case of a default judgment.)

In a statement emailed to Brownstoner by attorney Cuneo, a spokesperson for Arlo 67 LLC said the court had backed the LLC’s ownership interest in the property that it had acquired from Giles in 2017. The statement said proof of the sale had been shown in the form of a deed many times during the legal proceedings.

“The deed whereby Walter conveyed his interest to Arlo 67 LLC is on file with the New York City Department of Finance and has been produced numerous times in the litigation between Arlo and Ms. Doyle. The court, in issuing their judgment of partition and sale and allowing the premises to proceed to auction, has confirmed that Arlo has a valid ownership interest therein,” said the statement.

The spokesperson said that Phyllis Giles, Ayisha’s grandmother, left the house to both Walter Giles and Phillipa Doyle and for “10 years after their mother’s death, Ms. Doyle denied Walter’s ownership interest of the premises.”

Because of that, which meant he couldn’t realize any benefit from his ownership, Giles sold his share to Arlo 67 LLC in 2017, the statement continued. “Since 2017, Ms. Doyle has continued to act as though she was the sole owner of the premises and denied Arlo’s ownership interest,” it said.

The statement said that Arlo has made “numerous reasonable settlement offers” including that the LLC would accept a lower price than its share is worth to be bought out by the family, or Arlo would pay the Doyles more than their share is worth to take full ownership, “all of which were rebuffed by Ms. Doyle.” Because the offers were refused, “Arlo was left with no choice but to seek the legal remedy available to it, i.e., a partition of the premises.”

Ayisha told Brownstoner that prior to July 2, she had never been given an option to buy out Arlo 67 LLC. Although the auction already happened, Arlo and the Doyles are still discussing a settlement, according to attorneys for both parties.

New laws to protect homeowners

A recent community information session on preventing foreclosure and deed theft, organized and hosted by the State Attorney General Letitia James at Bed Stuy’s Restoration Plaza, was packed to the brim with predominantly Black owners expressing frustration that their communities are being targeted by investors.

State Attorney General James told the audience that “deed theft is a particularly heinous crime, and a crime that steals individuals’ homes without their knowledge.” Because of its pervasiveness across the state, her office, the governor, and the legislature have put $150 million into funding a network of 90 legal services to assist homeowners for free. She said between 2014 and 2023, the sheriff’s office in New York City had received 3,500 complaints of deed theft, with more than 1,500 in Brooklyn.

Homeowners expressed frustration at the legal help available, saying while it is supposed to be free, many providers don’t have the time or resources to assist them. Many, including attorneys in the audience and on the panel, expressed serious concerns about the court system and how it is working — or not working — for homeowners.

Partition sale law was designed for individuals and family members in disagreement; the law didn’t contemplate the situation of LLCs swooping in and buying shares from distant heirs and then filing to push out longtime owners, Senior Staff Attorney at Legal Services NYC’s Neighborhood Economic Justice Project Jacquelyn Griffin told Brownstoner. In 2019, the Uniform Partition of Heirs Property Act was created in response to the new reality.

Prior to the act, she said, many partition cases were decided on default because an LLC would file a case without the people living in the house even being aware. The new law requires a settlement conference between the parties and slows down the process.

In 2023, law S.6577/A.6656 passed, which allows pausing evictions for homeowners embroiled in ownership or title disputes. It also gives officials more latitude to void fraudulent ownership documents.

Another recently proposed bill would require sellers be notified of the market value of a home before a sale goes through. Other suggestions for reforming the process include vetting deeds before they are recorded, taking deed records offline to make owners less vulnerable (as Palo Alto, California, and other municipalities have done), making funding or loans available to longtime owners to litigate, and assigning monitors to partition cases.

Decades of homeownership

Ayisha said just being a homeowner in Bed Stuy now puts you in the spotlight. “It’s just like you’re sitting out here minding your business, living your life, and oh!” she said, referring to the surprise of being thrust into legal proceedings. “It’s taken a tremendous toll on all of us the last five years,” she said, adding she and her parents, who split time between Brooklyn and Trinidad, have all suffered serious health issues.

She reflected on her family’s 75 years of homeownership on Jefferson Avenue, how her great-grandparents weren’t able to get loans to purchase the house because of redlining, and were one of the few Black families on the block. They had helped many other Caribbean immigrants start a life in Brooklyn by providing a home base, and had been so proud to be able to do that and contribute to the city as part of their “American Dream.”

She said her grandparents and her mother did the same, all attending local schools and churches and working in the community. It’s not fair the system has allowed the house to be sold despite all the work her family has put into it and continues to put into it, and there should be more protections for homeowners, she said.

“Why shouldn’t [my mother] be able to have access to things as an older adult in the neighborhood that she grew up in, that her great-grandparents contributed to economically, that her parents contributed to economically, she contributed to economically?”

The whole ordeal was dehumanizing, she said.

“I’ve worked for social justice agencies, not-for-profit agencies, and, you know, really believe in that and people, so to come up against something like this really crushes your spirit a lot.” Ayisha said she has reached out to all her local representatives to explain her situation, but hasn’t gotten anywhere. She is currently waiting on a meeting with the State Attorney General’s office. The office told Brownstoner it has received a complaint and is reviewing the case.

But one thing the Doyles have both made clear: “I’m not going down without a fight,” Phillipa said. “We’re not going down, period,” Ayisha added.

[Photos by Anna Bradley-Smith | Published 2:23 p.m. on 07/18/24]

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