Austin businessman Nate Paul lost 9 properties worth combined $138M to foreclosure: Report
The 3M campus accounted for the largest portion of the foreclosures, valued at $100.9 million.
JUN 2, 2021 | REPUBLISHED BY LIT: OCT 16, 2021
Notable Austin businessman Nate Paul lost major pieces of his real estate empire. Above is his criminal complaint.
Nate Paul’s company, World Class Property, had nine properties foreclosed upon, totaling losses of $138.1 million. The largest portion of that was $100.9 million from the 3M campus, according to the Statesman.
Karlin Real Estate LLC, a company based in Los Angeles that already owns real estate in Austin, acquired the bulk of them during Tuesday’s auctions .
Paul told the Statesman in an email that Tuesday’s sales were “unlawful” and indicated he will contest them. He also said he is “being victimized by unethical adversaries.”
These foreclosures aren’t the first for Paul. In December of 2020, a number of properties owned by Paul and World Class Property Company were acquired during a foreclosure sale in Travis County by a lender owed about $22 million in delinquent debt.
Aside from the foreclosure news, Paul has also been a notable figure in the ongoing controversy regarding allegations of corruption against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Restraining order sought against Hardeman-owned entity over allegations of refusal to accept payment
MAY 31, 2021 | REPUBLISHED BY LIT: OCT 16, 2021
A group of Texas real estate lenders named as defendants earlier this month in a $35 million lawsuit over a foreclosure sale is facing similar lawsuits in Austin.
Nate Paul entity WC 707 Cesar Chavez LLC is seeking a temporary restraining order, temporary injunction and permanent injunction against Cesar Rainey Street LLC in the Travis County District Court. The allegations in an application for the restraining order states general counsel Mark Riley represents a group of lenders that are unlawfully refusing to accept payment for a loan they purchased in an attempt to call the loan into default and foreclose on the property.
Cesar Rainey Street LLC is owned by Bryan Hardeman and the Hardeman Family Joint Venture LTD.
“A borrower’s right to pay off its debt is a principle as centuries old as is the law,”
the document states.
“Here, however, the lender refuses to accept the borrower’s money…. because this lender is not in business to get paid back on its loan and this lender wants to foreclose and take the property for itself, no matter what.”
The lenders had scheduled the foreclosure sale on the property June 1, it states.
“In summary, despite knowing that borrower is willing and able to pay the lender in full, the lender inexplicably refuses to accept payment as is required by law and still intends to foreclose on the property,” the document states. “The borrower, therefore, has no choice but to seek injunctive relief to stop the June 1 foreclosure sale, and to prevent the lender from exercising any other lien rights given tender of the indebtedness.”
A similar lawsuit filed in Travis County also named Riley along with Austin investor Bryan Hardeman and his son Will Hardeman and real estate professional Justin Bayne, Houston Daily previously reported. Bayne is Riley’s nephew and is allegedly manager of the the law firm behind these note purchases.
The lawsuit accuses the men of forming numerous shell companies to pursue a complex, fraudulent real estate scheme to defraud companies of equity in real estate in Austin, San Antonio and elsewhere in Texas.
This is the fifth loan where this group of lenders has allegedly engaged in the same activity. All five properties are in Austin at 4811 S. Congress, Teakwood Plaza, Fourth and Rio Grande and the Alamo Industrial Center. These recent suits match the Cesar Chavez LLC criminal complaint to the Travis County district attorney.
“It is not only entirely improper and unlawful, but also bizarre, that the lender refuses what every lender wants: to get paid back the money it loaned,” the application for temporary restraining order states. “But this lender is different. It and its principals and enablers’ motivation is not to collect on its indebtedness but to take real estate that is worth far in excess of the loan for itself. That conclusion is the only logical way to explain lender’s bizarre unwillingness to accept cash.”
Paul is the CEO of World Class Holdings.
Post Edited: Gibson Dunn Withholding Evidence and Committing ‘Fraud About Fraud’ Earns a Benchslap from Delaware Vic https://t.co/FArBTEh42s
— LawsInTexas (@lawsintexasusa) October 13, 2021
‘The facts in this matter are simple’: Four Austin, Houston defendants accused of fraud in $35 million suit over foreclosure sale
MAY 20, 2021 | REPUBLISHED BY LIT: OCT 16, 2021
Four men accused of fraud last summer by an Austin-based real estate holding company’s CEO, who also filed suit in November, are now named defendants in a $35 million lawsuit over a foreclosure sale earlier this month.
Meandering Bend LLC filed suit in Travis County District Court on May 12 against Harris County attorney and foreclosure trustee Mike Riley, real estate professional Justin Bayne, Austin investor and well-known Austin Infiniti auto dealer Bryan Hardeman and his son Will Hardeman. The lawsuit includes more than a dozen counts over the real estate company’s efforts to purchase a World Class Holdings property during a May 4 foreclosure sale.
Meandering Bend claims in its lawsuit that it was “the lawful highest bidder” for the property during a foreclosure auction at Travis County Courthouse and that Riley didn’t acknowledge Meandering Bend’s “winning bid” of more than $11.7 million.
“The facts in this matter are simple, yet defendants conspired and continue to conspire to complicate this matter and prevent plaintiff as the rightful, highest bidder from completing the transaction and acquiring the property,” the lawsuit said.
Meandering Bend’s complaint also names 4811 Soco as a defendant, which is a limited partnership headed by Bryan that held a lien on the property now at the center of the complaint.
World Class Holdings CEO Nate Paul is not mentioned in the lawsuit.
In September, Paul filed a criminal complaint with the Travis County District Attorney’s Office alleging a fraudulent scheme by Hardeman, the other defendants now named in the Meandering Bend lawsuit and seven other men. In his criminal complaint, Paul alleged the group started committing “a fraudulent financial scheme to defraud mortgage borrowers” in January of last year and that it was still going on when he filed the complaint.
The scheme involved a series of individual loan purchases that “all shared very concerning characteristics” by an anonymous loan purchaser, the criminal complaint said.
“The loans were all at very low loan-to-value ratios and it became very clear the new ‘anonymous lender’ was moving in an aggressive manner to call loans in to default and pursue remedies,” the criminal complaint said. “These remedies include trying to push for foreclosure on the commercial properties when such legal action was prohibited by orders of the City of Austin, Travis County and the State of Texas.”
In November, Bryan, Bayne and Riley were accused in a W.D. Texas federal lawsuit of having formed numerous shell companies to pursue a complex, fraudulent real estate scheme to defraud companies of equity in real estate in Austin, San Antonio and elsewhere in Texas. The three were accused in the lawsuit filed Nov. 23, 2020 in U.S. Bankruptcy Court Western Division of Texas of attempting to “spoil the market” for the real estate targeted in the alleged scheme to make it more difficult for the targeted companies to restructure their finances.
Bryan and his family worked through a company called “Anonymous Successor Lender” in an attempt to coerce banks to sell loans on properties owned by Paul without his knowledge, according to the lawsuit.
Dirty Deals: Austin Car Dealer and Businessman Bryan Hardeman’s Arrest on Suspicion of Arson
The same Hardeman who made a statement on video at Nate Paul’s auction “go find a court in this building to stop this”.
Who is Vinh Truong, Real Estate Investor, Motivational Speaker and Self-Claimed Venture Capitalist?
Vinh Truong owns and operates several businesses and websites involved in foreclosures and distressed real estate investment.
3 Years In Litigation: Vinh Truong Sued for Title Deed Fraud Defended by Bandit Lawyer Jeff Jackson
VINH TRUONG has testified that he is one and the same as QUANG V. TRUONG. Yet there is no official filing of a name change in Harris County.
Justin Bayne: Hardeman Family’s “Fall Guy”
When the Hardeman Family decided to start investing as an active loan purchaser in the Austin real estate market, who did they turn to to serve as the Manager of the LLC’s and to be the front man to hide their shenanigans? Justin Bayne, a 40-year old Austin real estate broker with no investment or real estate lending experience – and no money to invest.
As the Hardeman Family embarked on their audacious plan to steal properties from Austin real estate investor, Nate Paul, they formed a series of entities to shield their identity. The only name that has EVER appeared in public records is a tenant rep office broker named Justin Bayne. This was an odd situation as Justin Bayne was not known in the market as an investor, lender, or debt expert. He is known instead as your quintessential broker living off commissions. According to a former coworker of Bayne’s, the only thing firmly on Bayne’s calendar was happy hour.
According to Bayne’s bio, “in 2017 he converted his brokerage business to Bayne Commercial in order to focus on his 160-acre multi-use development project, Pearson Ranch, and simultaneously founded his professional coworking concept, FIRMSPACE.” See https://www.deepeddycap.com/our-team
To translate that in to layman terms, he spent the last 4 years on a development project that didn’t get developed and he started a knockoff version of WeWork that didn’t take off. When you have mouths to feed, might as well take on the role of fall guy for the Hardeman scheme in hopes of getting rich quick!
Bayne isn’t alone in his role however. His counsel is none other than his uncle: notorious swindler Mark Riley. Some background on Mark Riley below (yes, we also wonder how he is still allowed to practice law in the state of Texas). He’s a “lawyer” and a “CPA”, and is well known in Houston for the time spent in the courthouse as a serial defendant more so than a practicing lawyer.
https://www.courtlistener.com/opinion/3122598/mark-r-riley-v-robert-alpert/?
According to sources, Bayne’s involvement stems from his friendship with Bryan Hardeman’s privileged offspring, Will Hardeman. These 2 buddies orchestrated this strategy with Bayne’s crooked uncle and Will’s scumbag father, Bryan Hardeman.
Will Hardeman isn’t known for being the sharpest crayon in the box. Will’s time is spent wanting to be a race car driver or run for Mayor, typical aspirations of a rich kid who has lived off of Daddy’s money and not worked a day in his life.
Justin Bayne is one of the most intriguing characters in this saga. The Hardemans put him out in the front as the Manager of these LLC’s that are committing fraud, and his name is the only one that appears on any signed documents.
After all, every good scam has to have a “fall guy” that takes the fall for the people with the money sitting behind the scenes.
