Exhibit F from a lawsuit against the various developers of Base Village, showing the difference between what was sold and what was purchased. The suit, filed by 29 condo buyers, alleges the developers deliberately overstated the size of condos in Capitol Peak Lodge, which were selling at well over $1,000 a square foot in early 2008. The developers say the buyers were duly notified that the size of their new condos was “approximate.” Photo illustration: Brent Gardner-Smith
By Brent Gardner-Smith, Aspen Journalism
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Editor’s note: Please also see the “document trove” at the bottom of this story.
Attorneys for 29 condo owners in the Capitol Peak Lodge claim in a lawsuit that Aspen Skiing Co. “participated in a joint scheme” with other Base Village developers to defraud condo buyers.
The suit claims that Skico, along with Intrawest, The Related Cos., Related WestPac and other corporate entities involved with Base Village, purposely overstated the size of the condos in the Capitol Peak Lodge in order to charge buyers more and increase profits.
The lawsuit also claims that entities associated with Related later took steps to conceal the true size of the condos from buyers by failing to list the size of the units on an official condo map and by providing overstated figures to the Pitkin County assessor.
Skico’s attorneys at the Denver law firm of Dufford and Brown have moved to dismiss the claims against Skico in the suit, which has been unfolding in Pitkin County District Court since June 2011.
“The amended complaint fails to allege any particular conduct of Aspen Skiing Co. in relation to the allegation of misrepresentation or concealment,” Skico’s attorneys claim, adding that “Aspen Skiing Co. was not a party to the contracts for sale of the condominium units.”
The owners of Skico, the Crown family, formed a partnership with Intrawest called Intrawest Brush Creek Development Co. LLC to develop Base Village, before selling the project to entities controlled by The Related Cos. and Related WestPac in 2007.
An official with another entity formed by the owners of Skico and Intrawest — Base Village Phase 1A Development Co., LLC — signed purchase and sale agreements in 2006 with prospective buyers of the 82 condos in the three Capitol Peak Lodge buildings at the bottom of Snowmass Ski Area.
When buyers later closed on their condo sales in 2008, they did so with Base Village Owner LLC, an entity controlled by The Related Cos. and Related WestPac, not Skico.
But the attorneys for the 29 condo owners who have filed suit, Matt Ferguson of Garfield and Hecht in Aspen and Michael Reiser of Walnut Creek, Calif., assert that Skico acted as a developer and an agent in the Capitol Peak Lodge sales and so had an active role in the deal.
“Skico’s insinuation that it had no involvement in the development and sales of the units in the Base Village project is disingenuous,” a brief filed by Ferguson and Reiser on Feb. 21 stated. “ … Skico aided and abetted and participated in a joint scheme with all other Intrawest defendants in an effort to defraud plaintiffs.”
The attorneys for the condo owners have grouped the nine different defendants named in their lawsuit into the “Intrawest defendants” and the “Related defendants,” depending on which phase of the project they were involved with.
Skico, given its association with Intrawest and its sales entity, Playground, has been deemed to be an “Intrawest defendant.”
When asked for comment on the claims in the lawsuit, Dave Bellack, a senior vice president and in-house counsel for Skico, responded by saying “We don’t believe that the Aspen Skiing Company had anything to do with any of the allegations of these plaintiffs.”
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