Neil Lyon Group

Neil Lyon’s reprehensible conduct as the broker for our home purchase in 2005 forced us into an expensive, 3-​year legal battle when his agency sued us, their customers. French & French Fine Properties, operating with the Sotheby’s logo and now solely as Sotheby’s, embroiled us in a lawsuit to solve their and another client’s problem on a lot adjacent to ours that FFFP/Sotheby’s helped cause, hid from us at the time of purchase, and schemed about afterwards. Upon notice of FFFP filing suit against us in 2009, we contacted Neil Lyon, our former broker and friend, who told us he knew nothing about the issue so we felt assured that he was acting on our behalf. However on the witness stand he reversed his position and claimed he had disclosed the issue when, in fact, he had not disclosed it to us. The judge found that Lyon’s testimony was not credible, that he obtained his commission through material misrepresentation, and that he wanted no liability for his conduct as a broker. The court decided in our favor yet the agency is appealing to deny us the ability to recover our significant legal costs awarded by the court — around $ 200,000. We had an economically and emotionally painful experience with a man lacking integrity. The details are documented in Judge George Eichwald’s court decision which was filed in the County of Santa Fe’s District Court Clerk’s Office on September 27, 2012 by Stephen T. Pacheco, MRN.