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They say you should never mix business with pleasure.
An amicable split between Florida realtor Alyssa Morgan and her ex-husband, John Jansheski, has soured after Morgan agreed to sell the exec’s multi-family home where they were married.
Morgan is now suing Jansheski and his company that sold the property, Starboard Florida IV, in Miami-Dade Circuit Court for breach of written and oral contract, unjust enrichment and other charges, after Jansheski apparently allowed another agent to sweep Morgan’s listing. feet, The Real Deal report.
For a year and a half, Morgan marketed the Star Island mansion in Miami Beach, even putting together showings and fielding an offer from the property’s eventual buyer — but at a much lower sale price than that. Morgan was initially silent on her ex-husband.
“Besides, this case involves a real estate commission dispute dating back to [sic] the sale of a home at 27 Star Island Drive, Miami Beach, Florida,” the complaint said.
“At the same time, at the deepest level, this case involves more than a simple commission dispute between two companies in an arms inventory contract. Instead, it involves broken promises made by the ex-husband, Mr. Jansheski (managing member of Starboard) to his ex-wife, Mrs. Morgan, who bought the Inside Network buyer and Starboard, who eventually bought The Property, the first. the matrimonial home, protection and interest of Ms. Morgan (and Inside Network) to the Building Commission.”
Morgan said the legal dispute is about getting credit for the work he did to market the property.
“[The lawsuit is] in terms of maintaining high standards in our industry, giving credit where credit is due and working together,” he said TRD in the statement.
The couple divorced in May 2020. In February 2022, Morgan, then affiliated with One Sotheby’s International Realty, presented a $70 million offer from CrossCountry Mortgage CEO Ron Leonhardt to Jansheski’s company, Starboard. According to the lawsuit, Jansheski rejected the offer, calling it a “bottom-up number” and “refused to present any offer.” At that time, the complaint says, Morgan informed Jansheski that the buyer remained interested in the property, despite the lack of any offer.
Morgan continued to champion this structure, and in August 2022, he launched the Side-backed Inside Network. Morgan and Jansheski then entered into an exclusive sales agreement in October 2022 and in December 2022, Inside Network and Jansheski’s Starboard Florida IV amended the listing agreement to increase the gross commission amount from 3 percent to 4.5 percent. The agreement stipulated that Inside Network would receive a two percent commission on sales.
The property’s asking price was reduced from $77 million to about $74.7 million in January 2023. A month later, Jansheski’s Starboard ended the exclusive listing agreement with Morgan while allowing Inside Network to continue marketing the property, the suit says.
By May 2023, Morgan had arranged a trip with the buyer, according to text messages cited in the lawsuit filing. However, by August 1, Jansheski had transferred the listing to Dina Goldentayer at Douglas Elliman. Meanwhile, Morgan had scheduled a local demonstration on August 6 and, according to the lawsuit, Jansheski wrote that “Inside Network was protected by its demonstration” that day, according to the lawsuit.
“I told you that you are protected in this agreement, are you worried about this agreement?” Jansheski wrote to Morgan on Aug. 5, 2023, an attachment to the complaint shows.
Two days later, the buyer sent their final offer, which Jansheski accepted – and Morgan didn’t get a cent of the commission.
Morgan “worked really hard for a long time … and they didn’t pay him anything,” said the seller’s lawyer, Alexander Almazan. “The contract came to him, and the plaintiff had received from this buyer an offer of more than $10 million more than what the seller rejected.”
The buyer was Equities Property Holdings, the lawsuit said. The LLC, whose owner was previously unknown, appears to be tied to Ron Leonhardt, as Leonhardt’s name is listed in a notice of commencement that was filed earlier this year to renovate the pool, TRD report.
The property features a renovated 1924 guest house designed by Walter D. Garmo and a new waterfront mansion designed by SAOTA of South Africa. At one point the property, which includes a total of 23,000 square feet of living space, according to the old listing description, was asking $90 million.
Had Morgan been credited with the $57 million sale, he would have received a commission of $1.14 million. Goldentayer is not named as a defendant in the case. Chad Carroll of Compass represented the buyer.
Morgan first filed a complaint in November 2023, the case was dismissed by Miami-Dade District Court Judge Joseph Perkins in August 2024. In September 2024, Morgan filed an amended complaint adding allegations of breach of oral contract. On the 3rd of Oct. 2024, Jansheski and Starboard filed a motion to dismiss that Morgan is barred from seeking a commission from Jansheski and that there is no exception to an oral contract in Florida law.
Goldentayer was involved in another case involving high-value transactions in Miami earlier this year, although he was not named as a defendant. A real estate agent sued Douglas Elliman for misleading him about the identity of the buyer of his Indian Creek Village property, and eventually agreed to a $6 million discount on the sale. The home buyer ended up being Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Goldentayer and two other Elliman agents brokered the deal.
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Email Lillian Dickerson
