Note: This story was updated June 18, 2020, to include a response submitted by Paul Archer.
A sister is suing her brother for $1 million in a family feud over a Port Chester industrial property and is trying to dissolve their real estate partnership.
Barbara Bosses of Boca Raton, Florida and formerly of White Plains, sued Paul Archer of Pawley”™s Island, South Carolina, and Byram Realty Co. on May 26 in Westchester Supreme Court.
The dispute was unfolding as Mill Creek Residential of Jersey City was trying to buy the property at 1 Purdy Ave. for up to $15 million, to build an apartment building.
Peckham Industries, a road building and maintenance company, leases the 2.44-acre parcel along the Byram River where it operates an asphalt plant.
In 1953, Harry Archer, the father of the feuding siblings, and two other men, formed Byram Realty to buy, lease and manage the property.
By 1989, the founders had died and the property and partnership passed to their heirs. Barbara Bosses and Paul Archer each own one-sixth of Byram Realty, according to the complaint. Archer has managed the business for 31 years.
Mill Creek proposed buying 1 Purdy Ave. last year, and Bosses son, Mark, negotiated terms with the developer.
Mill Creek would pay $12 million to $15 million, based on $60,000 per apartment, for 200 to 250 apartments.
Peckham Industries, which has 14 years remaining on its lease, would dismantle the asphalt plant and vacate the property.
The deal was contingent on Mill Creek receiving property tax relief and support of the Port Chester Industrial Development Agency and various land use and environmental approvals.
Archer was in favor of the deal, according to the complaint, but changed his mind and unilaterally decided that the property would not be sold.
A majority of the partnership, now split among nine people, was in favor of the deal, the complaint states.
Mark Bosses notified Archer in a Dec. 23 email that the majority rules, under the partnership agreement, and he accused his uncle of ineffective management.
Barbara Bosses claims that she then discovered that her brother had distributed monthly income incorrectly from 2015 through 2020 and improperly kept nearly $50,000 for himself.
Bosses demanded access to partnership records, and Archer allegedly did not not respond.
She accuses her brother of breach of fiduciary duty by “failing to act in the best interests of the partnership.” She is asking the court to order an accounting of the assets and liabilities, restrain Archer from acting as the managing partner, dissolve the partnership and appoint a receiver to wind up business and distribute assets.
Archer disputed his sister’s and nephew’s version of events, in a sworn statement he mailed to the Westchester County Business Journal. He said that partners who hold a majority interest in Byram Realty voted against the sale.
He said Peckham would have been paid $5 million to vacate the premises, under the deal negotiated by Mark Bosses, and let out of paying millions of dollars more over the remaining years on the lease.
He accused his sister of libel, for claiming that he “unilaterally killed the sale to Mill Creek, when she knew that the partnership had voted no to the sale,” and for claiming that he improperly kept $50,000 from the partnership.
Previously, in a May 27 email he sent to the partners, he described the lawsuit as “malicious nonsense.”
“As of today,” he continued, “Byram Realty is dissolved and there will be no more distributions. I will not appear in a New York court and will do nothing further. How you will get your distributions is your problem.
“I have had it with Byram Realty.”
Barbara Bosses is represented by White Plains attorneys Brian T. Belowich and Kerry F. Cunningham. Archer is representing himself.
Only the fool represents himself.