A number of former President Donald Trump's properties around the country are included in a lawsuit by New York Attorney General Letitia James alleging their values were fraudulently inflated.
The $250 million lawsuit spotlights real estate that includes a golf resort and skyscrapers, accusing the former president, the Trump Organization and three of his adult children of manipulating the assets' value and defrauding banks. The suit, filed Sept. 21 in New York Supreme Court in Manhattan, alleges that inaccurate property valuations resulted in lower interest rates on bank loans, favorable insurance rates and artificially low tax rates.
All told, the former president is accused in the suit of more than 200 misleading and false valuations among real estate assets scattered across the country.
Trump responded to the lawsuit by calling it a political "witch hunt" and argued the Trump Organization had "a very powerful disclaimer" on every loan application that told banks and lenders not to rely on the company's appraisals. His attorney was quoted in press reports after the filing saying the suit is without merit and no wrongdoing took place. The Trump Organization has not commented on the specific buildings, and its lawyers did not respond to CoStar News’ requests to comment.
Here are some of the most prominent properties highlighted in the lawsuit:
Trump Tower
Location: 725 Fifth Ave., New York
Property Type: Office
Size: Nearly 1.1 million square feet
Allegations: The Trump Organization is accused in the suit of inflating Trump Tower's valuation for nearly a decade until 2019 by deploying an artificially low capitalization rate and hiking the property's net income. For example, in 2015 the company reported an $881 million valuation, up from $707 million for the previous year, the suit alleges. However, the Trump Organization reverted back to the lower valuation the following year, resulting in a nearly 30% drop in the 58-story tower's value, according to the filing.
Mar-A-Lago
Location: 1100 S. Ocean Blvd., Palm Beach, Florida
Property Type: Residential, hospitality
Size: 126 rooms, 62,500 square feet
Allegations: The attorney general's lawsuit accuses the former president of inflating the Palm Beach resort's value to as high as $739 million, a figure "based on the false premise" that various limitations didn't exist. Due to restrictions that precluded any property use other than a club, James claims the former president knew the valuations assigned from 2011 to 2021 were "false and misleading."
Trump Park Avenue
Location: 502 Park Ave., New York
Property Type: Residential
Size: 142 units, 31 stories
Allegations: The Trump Organization valued the Park Avenue tower as low as $91 million to as high as $350 million between 2011 and 2021, according to the attorney general's lawsuit. Former President Trump allegedly valued rent-stabilized units in the property as if they were unrestricted, resulting in a nearly $50 million valuation for those units even though an outside appraisal valued them at just $750,000, the suit claims.
Trump International Hotel Las Vegas
Location: 2000 N. Fashion Show Drive, Las Vegas
Property Type: Hospitality and residential
Size: 872 rooms, 64 stories
Allegations: The lawsuit claims Trump and the Trump Organization used "deceptive techniques" to "fraudulently inflate" the value of the former president's properties, including Trump International Hotel Las Vegas. In 2011 and 2012, the suit says, Trump hired an appraiser to contest the taxes assessed on the hotel-condominium property, in which Trump owns a 50% stake, and the appraiser valued the hotel portion of the property at just shy of $12.7 million. The Trump Organization also used a false sales projection to appraise the condominium units, the suit alleges, treating future sales revenue as if it represented the value of the property in order to inflate the valuation despite reporting one far lower for tax purposes.
40 Wall Street
Location: 40 Wall St., New York City
Property Type: Office
Size: Nearly 1.2 million square feet
Allegations: Trump allegedly used an artificially high valuation for his Wall Street office tower, the suit argues, claiming it was worth $525 million in 2012 even though a bank-ordered appraisal valued the property at $220 million that same year. The former president is accused in the suit of using the "grossly inflated value" as part of negotiations with lender Capital One to modify a loan that was taken for the tower in 2010. The inflated value was used again in 2015 to negotiate a new loan with better terms, according to the lawsuit. At that point, the Trump Organization allegedly manipulated the appraised value by "unreasonably" lowering expenses to falsely raise the building's net income, the lawsuit says, and that in some cases, it revised "the building’s budget to reclassify repeated annual costs as one time expenses."