Chances are, Taylor Swift is never, ever getting back together with Douglas Elliman after a New York judge on Thursday threw out a lawsuit filed by one of the brokerage’s agents claiming the “Shake it off” star owed a $1.08 million commission on a New York townhouse.
On Friday, Judge James Furman ruled that the “Bad Blood” songstress, who bought an $18 million townhouse at 153 Franklin Street in Tribeca in October 2017, never made “a formal agreement” with the Douglas Elliman broker who showed the property to the singer’s reps. Douglas Elliman claimed that Swift’s companies — Firefly Entertainment Inc, 13 Management LLC and Euro Tribeca LLC — “wrongfully excluded” broker Andrew Azoulay from the deal and the subsequent commission he would have received after expressing initial interest in his services through an email.
Swift’s representatives acknowledged receiving the email but argued that “it is a longstanding and well-established rule in New York that a broker is not entitled to a commission on a real estate sale unless he or she is the ‘procuring cause’ of the transaction” and claimed that Douglas Elliman’s efforts were “minimal” in the deal.
Azoulay had asked for $1,080,000 (the 6 percent commission he would have received from the sale) for breach of contract and what he called “tortuous interference with contract damages.”
Screen shot of written promise emailed to agent. Courtesy of New York County Clerk’s office.
The judge, evidently, sided with Swift.
“The email lacks most, if not all, of the material terms of a real estate brokerage agreement, including the scope and duration of the relationship and the fee,” Furman wrote, just before dismissing the case.
Douglas Elliman and Azoulay did not immediately respond to Inman’s requests for comment on the decision.