Posted on 10/12/2023 1:31:03 PM PDT by thegagline
Donald Trump obtained hundreds of millions of dollars in loans using financial statements that a court has since deemed fraudulent, a retired bank official testified Wednesday at the former president’s New York civil fraud trial.
Trump’s “statements of financial condition” were key to his approval for a $125 million loan in 2011 for his golf resort in Doral, Florida, and a $107 million loan in 2012 for his Chicago hotel and condo skyscraper, former Deutsche Bank risk management officer Nicholas Haigh testified.
But although the bank didn’t conduct its own full appraisals of Trump’s properties, it sometimes gave sizable “haircuts” to the values he’d placed on such holdings as Trump Tower and his golf courses, Haigh said.
“I think the phrase we used might have been ‘sanity checks’ on the numbers,” he said.
***
A judge last month ruled that the former president and his company, the Trump Organization, committed years of fraud by exaggerating the value of Trump’s assets and net worth on the financial statements he gave to banks, insurers and others to make deals and secure loans.
Trump’s longtime finance chief, Allen Weisselberg, acknowledged in testimony Tuesday that information in the financial statements wasn’t always accurate. ***
Trump’s 2011 financial statement listed his net worth as $4.3 billion, though Deutsche Bank pegged it around $2.4 billion in an internal credit report as he sought the Doral loan. The bank knocked 75% off the worth he’d given for planned developments, with the internal document citing “the uncertainty in valuing undeveloped land,” for example. The bankers halved the value he’d listed for his golf courses and had a $94 million difference of opinion over how to account for golf membership deposits among his liquid assets. ***
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Putting fraudulent information on financial disclosures is illegal.
He’s had about 3MM of debt forgiven, which means he didn’t repay it
Wow. So everyone you know in real estate is a cheater? That’s sad.
“Putting fraudulent information on financial disclosures is illegal.”
That is beside the point. Trump did not put fraudulent information on the financial disclosure. Evaluation of what your property is worth is a subjective procedure. Trump’s estimation is just as good as anyone else’s.
Have you ever been to or seen an auction?
Have you ever seen a used car dealer give an honest appraisal of one of his cars? No, because everyone know buyer beware.
Your must be stupid or a DeSantis supporter.
Sure, but that is rather different from just valuing your own property and having the tax office even bother to take that into account.
You mis-state the situation with the Condo.
He reported the condo as 20M, but *she had an option* for 8M. The AG was arguing that the difference was a deceit, rather than simply a locked-in buy-out price for a long-term tenant.
The argument is that he overstated the value of properties he owned to get lower interest rates. My point is that his income and holdings were high enough that the difference in opinion didn’t come into play.
Over-stating your income for a loan is fraudulent.
Mis-stating or omitting your liabilities for a loan is fraudulent.
Saying that you own a property which you do not and offering it for collateral is fraudulent.
Saying you think you can get a different price than someone else thinks that you can get is not fraudulent. Not remotely.
Claiming that a tax assessment after class deductions represents a market value is pretty close to fraud, and is at the least stupidity. The same with suggesting that a years-old buy-out option on a property represents current market price.
I never said they get what they wanted. I should have said not all people inflate prices. Market value usually rules and may try to keep to that. It just too many folks have inflated prices to get more, assumed that property amenities are better than they are, sold properties that look good but sucked (hidden money pits) etc.
my brother could not sell his house for 5 years due to too high for the market. Tried to say that certain amenities were way more than they should and would not drop the price.
The appraisal district values a parcel of land differently based on its designated use.
A residential parcel worth $375,000 on the open market may be valed at $300,000 by the appraisal district for property tax purposes.
If the owner designates the exact same parcel for agricultural use, the valuation drops to a fraction of that.
If the owner designates that parcel for club use, even less.
If the owner designates it as common area, in some jurisdictions the valuation drops to $1 for tax purposes.
A quick hearing with the tax assessor’s office or a zoning commission hearing can redesignate the land back to residential use. The valuation jumps back up to $300,000.
What is that parcel worth, regardless of the designation? $375K.
People in real estate know that this case is a steaming pile of crap.
Anyone that has ever owned a home should know it too.
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