Broker and Century 21 part ways

A real estate broker with offices throughout Nassau County and Queens is no longer involved in a franchise relationship with the national Century 21 chain, and the two companies are now embroiled in a legal dispute.

Century 21 and the broker, Greenvale-based Laffey Real Estate Inc., this week gave differing views of how and why they split.

Laffey, in a statement, said the underlying dispute is based on its view that Century 21 failed to meet its contractual duties.

"While we acknowledge that our business relationship with Century 21 has ended, the affiliation was not terminated by reason of our firm's failure to live up to the terms of its franchise agreement," the Laffey statement said. "Earlier this year, our firm notified Century 21 in writing of its' breach of franchisor obligations. Our firm intends to pursue these claims in the Superior Court of New Jersey, Morris County, as part of a pending litigation."

Laffey has offices in Greenvale, Bellerose, East Norwich, Great Neck, New Hyde Park, Port Washington, Westbury, Williston Park, Manhasset, Syosset, Jackson Heights and Little Neck.

Parsippany, N.J.-based Century 21, on its part, said that on Sept. 7 it terminated its agreement with Laffey. The company filed suit that day against Laffey claiming the former franchisee failed to pay $280,000 in royalties and other fees, court documents show.  "We terminated our business relationship with them because the firm failed to live up to the terms of its franchise agreements," the company said in a statement.

Century 21 is part of Realogy Corp., a privately-held spinoff of the company formerly known as Cendant Corp.

Century 21 also has a separate set of current legal disputes with other franchisees. It is now the subject of a class-action suit by franchisees nationwide who claim that Cendant, beginning in the late 1990s, misspent its fees, for example taking Century 21 royalties and using them to pay for advertisements for Cendant's other real estate brands including Coldwell Banker and ERA. That suit, filed in 2002, is still current and was given class-action status in August.

This week Laffey said its current dispute with Century 21 is related to the New Jersey class action suit. "This class action effectively concerns all Century 21 franchisees — such as Laffey Associates — who were franchisees at anytime during the period August 1, 1995 through April 17, 2002.

The judge's brief in that New Jersey suit "identifies many of the breaches our firm intends to pursue as part of the class action as well as in its individual action pending in the same court,” Laffey said.

Responding to the suit, Realogy said in a statement, “The assertions put forth in this litigation are unfounded and without merit.”

Above, Sandeep Shrivastav, a realtor at Laffey, posts a housing ad in the window of his office last year.

--------------------
Read more of Inside Long Island Business