TD Bank has sued a White Plains businessman for allegedly gaining control of a $4.9 million Yonkers property for $25,000 by concealing legal documents.
TD Bank is asking Westchester Supreme Court to set aside the sale, in a complaint filed on April 10, and bar Louis Zazzarino and his T11 Funding and RE Assets Trust from claiming an interest in the property.
“This is not the first instance in which T11 Funding, acting through Zazzarino … engaged in ‘bait and switch’ service methods,” the complaint states.
Efforts to contact Zazzarino for his side of the story were unsuccessful.
Zazzarino’s residence and the business addresses for T11 Funding and RE Assets are shown on legal documents as 333 Mamaroneck Ave., White Plains. The address is a mail drop at a UPS Store.
The Yonkers property at 945 Nepperhan Avenue was occupied by Fast Linen Service Inc. and FLD Associates.
In 2014, the businesses borrowed $3.5 million from TD Bank, based in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.
Loan documents listed a TD Bank address in Greenville, South Carolina, for receiving legal notices.
In 2017, the businesses failed to pay Yonkers property taxes, according to the complaint, triggering a tax lien sale.
Tax liens enable governments to seize property when taxes are not paid. If the property owner does not pay off the lien, it can be sold to a buyer who pays the taxes. Then the tax lien holder can foreclose on the property.
In 2018, the City of Yonkers held a tax lien auction and T11 Funding bought the lien for $6,475.
In 2018, T11 Funding initiated a tax lien foreclosure, but instead of sending legal notices to TD Bank’s South Carolina address, the complaint states, notices were sent to a Garden City, Nassau County branch bank that had no connection to the property.
Legal notices were sent to an incorrect address, according to the complaint, “to ensure that TD Bank would not answer or otherwise respond to the tax lien foreclosure action.”
Last year, the property was sold at a public auction at the Westchester courthouse. The only bidder was RE Assets Trust.
RE Assets bid $25,000 for a property that TD Bank claims had just been appraised at $4.9 million.
TD Bank claims this was not the first instance where T11 Funding failed to give proper notice to banks. The complaint cites 19 examples from 2016 to 2021 where legal notices were allegedly sent to random bank branches in Nassau County that had no connection to Westchester foreclosures.
TD Bank asked the court to set aside the foreclosure judgment and deed, declare that the mortgage is in full force, bar Zazzarino and his companies from claiming any interest in the property, and allow the bank or FLD Associates to pay off the tax lien and redeem the property.
