The real estate game can be a pretty cutthroat one between buyer and seller, with both parties doing everything they can to get the best deal for themselves, which naturally means the worst deal for their counterparts. Sometimes, that can include concealing one’s own personal financial situation. That was the case with the buyer of one Florida man’s home, and he ended up giving the individual a discount of $6 million only to find out later that he was one of the richest men on the planet: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. He’s understandably a little miffed at being had, and he’s actually filed suit against the Douglas Elliman real estate firm to try to get the $6 million back.
Leo Kryss paid $28 million for a prime piece of Indian Creek waterfront real estate in 2014, holding onto the 18,000-square-foot, seven-bedroom mansion until May of 2023, when he listed it for sale with an asking price of $85 million. A month after placing the listing, it came out that Bezos had paid $68 million for a smaller house right next door, so Kryss suspected Bezos to be behind an offer to buy his home for $79 million — $6 million less than the asking price. Indian Creek Village, incidentally, is a manmade private island outside of Miami and sometimes known as “Billionaire Bunker,” where Bezos has now spent hundreds of millions of dollars for three adjoining mansions altogether so far.
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Kryss’s lawsuit claims that he was assured personally by Douglas Elliman regional CEO Jay Parker that Bezos was not the buyer and that the buyer wouldn’t go a penny above their initial $79 million offer. The lawsuit claims this detail “was highly material to his negotiations and his decision on the ultimate sales price” and that had he known the offer was being made by Bezos, he would never have agreed to the discount.
Here’s a press statement from Kryss’s attorney:
“Douglas Elliman failed to fulfill their duties to our client.… They knew or should have known who the ultimate beneficial purchaser was and misrepresented that very important fact to our client.”
For Parker’s part, he sent Kryss an email following the close of the sale and the revelation that Bezos was indeed the mystery buyer, claiming that he had been in the dark on the matter as well, believing the buyer to be someone related to Benny Klepach, the duty-free retail mogul who also happens to be the mayor of Indian Creek Village. By some odd coincidence, Klepach’s daughter Celine Klepach was hired by Douglas Elliman in the weeks leading up to the closing of the sale and even reportedly made a commission on it, although she denies she was involved in the sale and is no longer employed with the company.
It’s not unusual for ultra-wealthy individuals like Bezos to try to conceal their identities to avoid unanticipated price increases in big real estate deals, but Leo Kryss obviously feels his experience with Bezos and Douglas Elliman went out of the usual bounds of fair play.