The seller of a $27.5 million Fifth Avenue penthouse was not entitled to keep the 10 percent deposit when the buyer failed to close, the Appellate Division, First Department, ruled Tuesday in overturning a lower court’s grant of summary judgment.
Justice Rolando Acosta, writing for a unanimous panel in Pastor v. DeGaetano, 652396/13, said “the lingering specter of a co-op board’s refusal to comply with the governing document’s provision regarding the owner’s right to exclusive access over the subject property would make any reasonable purchaser uneasy.”
