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The American commercial property market is going to collapse in the next 12-18 months but authorities are set on chasing Donald Trump, his attorney has told Newsweek.
Chris Kise was reacting to the $355 million fine that Judge Arthur Engoron imposed on Trump on February 16 for overinflating the value of his assets.
Kise, who was the chief attorney in that case, said authorities were trying to run Trump out of New York, yet he is one of the few commercial property developers who is debt-free.
"The irony here is that in the next 12-18 months, many commercial properties are likely going to go into default or distress, especially in cities like New York.
"However, unlike President Trump, many developers rely on very high debt loads, so a market collapse will be very consequential."
Kise said that Trump's New York fraud trial established how strong his company finances really are.
"Indeed, one of the things that Deutsche Bank really liked about President Trump was he had very low debt for a developer and, in their words, "one of the best balance sheets [they had] ever seen."
"It's really counterintuitive that the Attorney General and the Judge want to drive people like President Trump out of New York," Kise added.
Asked about the timing of the appeal, Kise said it "will depend on many factors so it's hard to say at the moment, but in any event, it will fall within the 30-day clock" that is allowed by the court.
Newsweek sought email comment on Monday from the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James, who took the case against Trump.
On Friday, Engoron ruled that Trump will have to pay roughly $355 million in penalties. Trump, Allen Weisselberg, and Jeffrey McConney will also be barred from serving as an officer or director of any New York corporation or other legal entity in the state for three years. Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump were ordered to each pay more than $4 million and were banned from doing business in the state for two years.
Trump, the current GOP frontrunner for the 2024 presidential election, has maintained his innocence in the case and claimed it was politically motivated.
Kise made his comment amid growing concern about the US commercial property market.
Some $929 billion of outstanding commercial mortgages held by lenders and investors will mature in 2024, or 20 percent of the $4.7 trillion total outstanding debt, according to recent data from the Mortgage Bankers Association.
"If nothing changes—if interest rates remain elevated and property values do not improve —we do view defaults at the rate of the Great Recession, and in fact even higher, as quite a possibility," one of the co-authors, Columbia Business School professor Tomasz Piskorski, told Mail Online on Sunday.
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About the writer
Sean O'Driscoll is a Newsweek Senior Crime and Courts Reporter based in Ireland. His focus is reporting on U.S. law. ... Read more