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Deloitte CEO Joe Echevarria Doesn’t Want to Hear About the Troubles You’ve Had Selling *Your* House

As you may recall, after Joe Echevarria became CEO of Deloitte in 2011, we learned that his house in Westchester was up for grabs with an asking price of $2.8 million. The 6,000 square-foot spread had hit the market in March of that year listed at $3 mil, so you can safely assume that Joe and his wife Ana were anxious to move the thing.

The Echevarrias' broker was Bernice Gottleib, who had an exclusive 6-month contract to sell the house that would earn her a 4% commission. She was even a long-time friend of the couple and trained Ana to be a broker. That sounds like a pretty good deal — friends helping each other out and all that. 

Of course, people get a little prickly when it comes to their homes and Ana Echevarria didn't think things were moving along quickly  enough:

[T]he couple secretly sold it to realty firm Weichert, which handles Deloitte relocations, in 2011.
Small problem — the sale occurred in the window of Gottleib's contract. Gottleib sued (see the suit on the next page), naturally, for breach of contract:
[L]ast week, Supreme Court Justice Mary H. Smith ruled their contract “unambiguously” made it clear the Echevarrias were obligated to direct all sales inquiries to Gottlieb, and that “Ana had admitted that she had failed to inform Ms. Gottlieb of the Weichert offer.”
Did we mention that the house only sold for $2.1 million? Yep! So that means Joe and Mrs. Joe cut their original asking price by 30% in five months and now they get to hand over $85k (plus, $25k in attorney's fees!) to their broker who didn't even earn it. Ms. Gottleib told the Post  that she was relieved "just has been done" but was also "embarrassed, betrayed and humiliated."
 
No one in Camp Echevarria (lawyer, Deloitte) commented. They're probably content to let this one go.  
 

Gottlieb v Echevarria