It was reported in the Wall Street Journal to-day that the world’s richest man, Carlos Slim of Mexico, may have failed to pay the real estate broker that had listed the property before it sold a commission on the purchase of the Duke-Semans Mansion at 1009 Fifth Avenue…. Of course, the Seller would be the one responsible for paying this commission. The details surrounding the case are not 100% certain but the broker claims they introduced this buyer through one of his reps while they still had an active exclusive. Mr. Sapir, the owner, supposedly made the deal with Slim after the exclusive had expired.

“This is not the first huge sale of 2010 where a seller avoided paying commission,” says Leonard Steinberg, managing director of Prudential Douglas Elliman and leader of the LUXURYLOFT team. “Sometimes, the very wealthiest people will try to avoid paying a brokers commission. Is it greed? Is it desperation? It sometimes helps explain how some of these fortunes are made.”