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- Cushman & Wakefield did not always follow “internal quality control practices” when appraising properties for Donald Trump, a Manhattan judge found Thursday.
- The rebuke is buried in an order that requires C&W turn over additional appraisals to NY AG Letitia James.
- C&W had fought the subpoena, saying ‘thousands’ of clients’ confidentiality could be compromised.
Appraisal giant Cushman & Wakefield did not always follow its own “internal quality control practices” when appraising properties for Donald Trump, a Manhattan judge has found.
“This Court has reviewed numerous documents in camera,” meaning in private, the judge wrote, “demonstrating that C&W was not consistent in adhering to its internal quality control practices when conducting appraisals on behalf of the Trump Organization.”
The rebuke is included — almost as an aside — toward the end of a court order released on Thursday. The order requires that C&W turn over stacks of additional appraisals to New York Attorney General Letitia James’ probe of Trump’s business.
The firm has until May 27 to turn over appraisals not only for Trump properties but for other properties “comparable” to the Trump assets they have valued.
Thursday’s written ruling expands on what the judge, New York State Supreme Court Justice Arthur Engoron, had ruled from the bench on Monday, when he found that C&W must comply with James’ recently-expanded subpoena.
The AG “has an independent investigate interest in determining whether there was a pattern and practice at C&W of failing to adhere to its internal quality control practices,” Engoron wrote.
C&W had fought the expanded subpoena, saying it could potentially require them to turn over “thousands” of “utterly irrelevant” appraisals for clients whose confidentiality rights would then be compromised.
But Engoron, who is presiding over a host of subpoena squabbles in the AG’s Trump probe, said that the additional appraisals James wants are very relevant.
James’ office “has satisfied its burden of demonstrating that the materials sought from C&W are not “utterly irrelevant to its inquiry,” the judge wrote.
He quotes from one of James’ own arguments, which had said, “It is plainly germane to an inquiry into choices related to key appraisal variables, whether the same appraisers made similar or different choices for other clients in comparable circumstances.”
The judge continued, “For example, although appraisals of adjacent buildings on the same date will be completely different based on their respective sizes, ages, condition, occupancies, the assumptions for the rate of inflation should be the same.”
James is probing how Trump valued at least ten properties over the past decade. She has alleged in court documents that she believes he overstated valuations when he wanted to use the asset as loan collateral, and minimized some of the same valuations to lower his real estate taxes.
Many of the questioned appraisals were done by C&W, including for the Trump family’s Westchester County estate, Seven Springs, the Trump National Golf Club near Los Angeles and the skyscraper at 40 Wall Street in Manhattan, where Trump’s stake “doubled” in value from 2012 to 2015.
C&W has denied wrongdoing, saying in a statement earlier this week, “Any suggestion that Cushman & Wakefield has not responded in good faith to the attorney general’s investigation is fundamentally untrue.”
The statement continued, “We stand behind our appraisers and our work.”
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