The estate of deceased Scarsdale real estate developer Howard N. Blitman claims that a partner has failed to pay off a bank loan.
Robin Winter, the estate executor and daughter of Mr. Blitman, is demanding $2,023,179 from Gary S. Peresiper and his MPI Development Inc., in a complaint filed Dec. 12 in Westchester Supreme Court.
But Peresiper, of Montvale, New Jersey, said Winter might owe him money, after all of the transactions are disclosed.
“I am looking forward to my day in court,” he said in a brief telephone interview, “to prove there is no liability on my end.”
The dispute involves $3 million that Blitman Mahopac LLC borrowed from Tompkins Mahopac Bank in 2019. Howard Blitman, Peresiper and MPI each guaranteed the loan, according to the complaint.
Blitman Development Corp. and affiliates have been building homes in the tri-state region for three decades. Peresiper, a CPA, provided in-house accounting services on a part-time basis and held a minority interest in some projects. He also runs a private accounting practice.
The Blitman Mahopac loan was for development of Random Ridge, a 29-house subdivision in Mahaopac, according to Peresiper.
This past September, the bank issued a default notice and demanded $3,034,768 from the developer.
Howard Blitman had died of Covid-19 in January 2021, at age 94. His estate became one of the loan guarantors, the complaint states, and it paid off the entire loan.
Then the estate demanded that Peresiper and MPI pay their share of the debt, according to the complaint, and they have failed to do so.
But according to Peresiper, Howard Blitman had put Winter in charge of the business before he died. And in early 2020 Peresiper resigned from the business due to health reasons and no longer had anything to do with the Random Ridge project.
He said various loans had been taken out to build houses at Random Ridge.
A couple of months ago he found out that the $3 million loan had not been paid.
“I have no idea where the money went and no idea what happened,” he said.
“Typically, the loans are paid off on the closing of each house, and there were enough closings to pay off all the loans. … “None of the investors nor I know how the project didn’t generate enough revenue to pay down that loan.”
