Forbes magazine reported that while former US President Donald Trump is trying to fight off the authorities, new information about the Trump Tower indicates that the building has always been some kind of fraud.
And while the New York Attorney General’s Office and the Manhattan Attorney General have focused on Trump Tower as part of their investigations into Trump’s attempts to mislead creditors about the value of his assets. Last September, the attorney general filed a $250 million civil lawsuit accusing Trump, his company and his supporters of fraud.
And Forbes pointed out that since the early 1980s, long before a quarter-billion-dollar lawsuit or possible criminal charges were filed, it had been investigating various aspects of Trump’s property and had concluded three possible new pieces of evidence related to Trump tower.
It says records show the real estate mogul has lied about the building’s financial performance since it opened in 1983. Tax and loan documents also indicate that Trump lied about office and retail space in the building.
Portions of the 2015 audio tape prove that Trump was personally involved in the lies and fraud regarding the cost of commercial space in Trump Tower.
She stated that “in 1978, the future president was 32 years old and lived in Queens, and his father’s wealth prompted him to want to make a name for himself in Manhattan, so he partnered with the Equitable Life Assurance Society, which owned part of the land on Fifth Avenue . To realize his ambition, several lenders, including his father, helped him lend him and his partner $130 million so they could build a skyscraper.
Trump opened Trump Tower five years later, receiving praise, including from Trump himself, who called the tower “the most successful development in recent memory.”
Trump told Forbes that he sold 85 percent of the tower’s housing units for between $500,000 and $12 million apiece before the building opened to support his project. He announced that the total profit from sales of residential units in the tower was $268 million.
However, the announced numbers were incorrect, as a new review of legal documents shows that in 1983, when Trump Tower opened, Trump and his associates sold about 60% of the housing units, the equivalent of 150 units in the building.
130 units sold for less than $500,000, with the cheapest units sold for just $130,000. The most expensive apartment in the building was sold for $2 million, one-sixth of the price Trump announced the sale at. At the end of the year, Trump and the insurance company were paid $45 million.
And Forbes reported that Trump bought the Equitable Life Assurance Society in 1986, acquiring a building that houses shops and offices, including private space for his company. He ended up in one of the penthouse apartments, where he settled with his family.
Trump has run his business and life from his office on the 26th floor and his apartment on the 68th floor for decades. He retained ownership of the commercial space at the base of the building and notes that $18 million is spent annually on this part of the building.
Insurers who inspected the building around the same time confirmed that the tower generated about $6.3 million in annual net operating income, according to credit records.
According to the magazine, Trump continued to lie, claiming that the 11,000-square-foot penthouses were about 30,000 square feet, and changed his financial statements to reflect the true size.
Surprisingly, no one paid attention to the fact that Trump was voicing numbers that did not correspond to the cost per square meter of the building’s shopping centers, which are much more expensive than a penthouse.
According to tax documents from 2009 to 2010, the property is 234,000 square feet, but it also states that 45,000 square feet, or 19% of that area, was vacant.
The documents indicate that in the period from 2011 to 2017, from 11% to 22% of the area of the object was empty.
Trump’s company acted as if there were no vacancies in the building when dealing with creditors.
According to a 2012 refinancing loan document, the Trump Organization recorded occupancy at 92% in 2010, 99% in 2011, and 99% in 2012.
She said Trump’s hoax over the tower’s commercial space peaked in 2015, when data showed one piece was $881 million, despite appraisers’ estimate of about half that amount three years ago, and profits had dwindled. . for these three years..
This figure is broken down into 46,000 square feet of retail space and 200,000 square feet of office space, with no mention of common areas such as mechanical equipment areas or septic tanks.
Trump, wanting to appear more creditworthy to the banks, inflated the value of real estate by about $400 million.
There is no doubt that Trump was involved in this process, as his 2015 financial statement indicated that the estimated present value of $880,900,000 was based on an estimate made by Trump with his partners and outside experts.
Trump’s lies went on for years to convince everyone, including his creditors, the media and the public, that he was billions of dollars richer than he really was.
Source: Forbes
