Chetrit Family Business, Legal Drama Continues to Grow

16 minutes read

Meyer Chetrit sat in a law firm conference room on a Tuesday in December. Across the table was a lender looking for cash.

Maverick Real Estate Partners, an aggressive investment firm, was working to collect a $132 million court-ordered judgment from Chetrit. That morning was an auction for some of Chetrit’s real estate interests, with Maverick mostly taking them for itself.

Over four decades, the Chetrits built an empire, with hands in office, multifamily and retail. When financing was cheap, they flourished. Families like them could afford to be aggressive. But in this post-pandemic world of inflation, tighter financing and tenant-friendly politicians, blunders can be costly.

Defaults and legal judgments now threaten to knock Meyer and his brother Joseph Chetrit off their top perch.

Men from Morocco

The Chetrit family background has become industry lore. Joseph Chetrit arrived in New York from Morocco in the 1970s. The family made money in the textile industry before pivoting to real estate, first with residential buildings in Brooklyn and Queens and then with commercial properties in the city.

The Chetrits gained a reputation for speed. They didn’t bother with the spreadsheets and exhaustive due diligence that bogged down institutional investors. Meyer Chetrit has testified that his education ended after the 12th grade. They were willing to act decisively and, crucially, came with cash.

The empire expanded, not just in New York but in Florida and other states. Since 2011, Joseph and Meyer have run the Chetrit Group, while their brothers Juda and Jacob run the slightly lower-profile real estate firm Chetrit Organization.

Over the past year, the empire began showing cracks, as numerous lawsuits have been brought against the family. Some have come with concerning allegations of mismanagement and questionable business practices.

At office towers 500 and 512 Seventh Avenue, the Chetrit Group had partnered with Edward Minskoff and Joseph Moinian. But in July, a lender accused the borrower of “intentional self-dealing,” transferring about $1 million of tenant security deposits to outside accounts, with about $300,000 transferred to accounts associated with other Chetrit projects or affiliates.

Minskoff and Moinian pointed their fingers at Meyer Chetrit in court filings, saying they directed him to turn over security deposits. The receiver for the property floated the idea of holding Chetrit in contempt, although that was withdrawn. A lawyer for Chetrit said the developer handed over about $363,000 in security deposits, which is the total amount in possession at that time.

At the Hotel Indigo in Williamsburg, the lender this past summer accused the Chetrits of mismanaging the property, failing to pay vendors, not getting permission for a major lease and neglecting the property’s upkeep. Tenants at the building have said they’ve lacked hot water and have accused the Chetrits of overcharging them on rent. The Chetrits have been fighting the suit, although a lawyer for the defendants was at one point accused of citing fictitious cases.

Elsewhere, Meyer has been handed a $39 million judgment related to a case from fashion designer Reem Acra. In 2016, a fire burned through Acra’s Spring Bridal collection, torching 300 evening gowns and other inventory. Acra’s brands successfully argued that the blaze was due to shoddy demolition work from a Chetrit-hired firm. A lawyer for Chetrit said that while they accept the judgment, they don’t believe $39 million to be an accurate representation of the damages. The Chetrit Group unsuccessfully tried to stay the judgment earlier this year, saying Meyer Chetrit didn’t receive notice when the plaintiffs moved for default judgment.

One thing that has followed Joseph and Meyer Chetrit has been recourse guaranties they’ve signed on loans. The $132 million judgment to Maverick is the result of recourse guaranty Meyer signed on a loan connected to a hotel development site at 255 West 34th Street. Maverick later acquired the debt.

In contrast, the Chetrit Organization, run by Juda and now Jacob’s son Michael, who took over after his father’s death in early 2025, has perhaps worked harder to avoid guaranty agreements.

To add to the headaches, Meyer and Joseph were arrested in October for alleged harassment of tenants in a rent-stabilized building. Two septuagenarian occupants said they were without heat and an elevator and part of a ceiling had been in disrepair for some of their time at a Chetrit-owned Chelsea loft building. City officials said they hoped that cracking down on two big-name developers would serve as a warning to landlords.

A criminal defense attorney for Joseph Chetrit said he categorically denies the allegations. Chetrit is “addressing the charges in a responsible and professional manner,” Joshua Kirshner said in a statement. “Efforts remain ongoing to ensure the building at issue is properly maintained for the tenants currently residing there.”

Back on top?

Despite all this, the Chetrits are certainly not out of the game. For one, they’ve secured several loan workouts and extensions from lenders. Those include the Empire Hotel; 265-275 Cherry Street, a Two Bridges development site; and Yorkshire Towers at 305 East 86th Street, a 700-unit apartment tower on the Upper East Side in New York. In Florida those include the Hollywood Beach Resort and Pompano Beach condo projects.

The Chetrit Organization, run by Juda and Michael Chetrit, has been particularly successful with restructuring. It has worked out or refinanced loans on 459 and 427 Broadway, 393-401 Fifth Avenue, 404 Fifth Avenue, 65 Broadway as well as others.

In total, the workouts likely total billions between both sides of the family.

It’s not totally clear whether the legal challenges point to money problems for the family. In 2022, Meyer had an estimated net worth of more than $1 billion, with $12 million of it in cash, according to court documents. (He later testified he believed he had more than $35 million in cash.)

But recently he told a court that his businesses were having “significant financial complications that have resulted in an explosion of litigation.”

“They have no money, they’ve been struggling for five years,” Gadi Ben Hamo, a business partner of the Chetrits, said of the family in September. Maverick, attempting to collect on its judgment, had accused Meyer of shielding his assets through a debt to Ben Hamo. That case is ongoing.

But beyond money, court filings and affidavits paint a picture of a family that is surprisingly disorganized, considering the size of its real estate holdings.

In January, the law firm Baron Samson petitioned the court to withdraw from representing the Chetrits, saying it was no longer able to trust information from the family.

“[S]ome of my requests for information and cooperation remained unfulfilled for months after I first made them despite repetition and promises of compliance,” attorney Elliot Joffe wrote in an affirmation to the court. “[P]romises of cooperation were made and broken many times over the months.”

Meyer told a court that his responsibilities have not included “details or organizational paperwork,” and that he has relied on staff for that work.

“As a result, I have had difficulty remembering dates and even some of the transactions in which I have participated,” he wrote in an affirmation to the court after Maverick accused him of failing to comply with a subpoena. “I attempted to assist my attorney in locating and producing the operating agreements of all of the companies that I owned, but I forgot some of them.”

In the background, Joseph Chetrit has been having health complications.

His absence from the daily life of the firm has likely left a hole; Meyer once testified that the Chetrit Group had no other officers or directors outside himself and his brother.