Pauline Cauchefer and one of her partners decided “by mutual agreement” to sell more than 3.3 million in residential buildings they had purchased to “optimize” them, in Hochelaga-Maisonneuve.
The young darling of the plex and her partner Simon Lévêque made this decision after the report of Press which explains how its tenants accuse it of massive renovations. Co-owners are also suing for embezzlement this 24-year-old businesswoman, who claims to have acquired “100 doors per year”.
“With what is happening now, we talked about it, and we made the decision that we were going to end our partnership,” said Simon Lévêque in an interview with Press. He said to himself “really, really disappointed with everything that is going on”.
Our revelations about Pauline Cauchefer’s conflicts with her other partners deeply shaken him, he says. “I find it really unfortunate what happened. It weighed a lot in my decision. I knew there was a situation, but I didn’t know the magnitude of what it was. ”
Simon Lévêque also affirms that he was not involved in the negotiations to obtain the departure of tenants. “I was not aware of everything,” says the real estate investor, who still remains a partner of Pauline Cauchefer in a few properties.
Other counter-letter sellers
In one of the buildings put up for sale, rue de Chambly, Simon Lévêque is the only owner registered in the land register. However, he confirms that Pauline Cauchefer has acquired shares in the plex by signing a counter-letter.
The Caisse Desjardins du Quartier-Latin registered a mortgage of $ 685,000 on the property, but the young woman’s name does not appear anywhere in the deed.
According to Simon Lévêque, the sellers of the three buildings also include other hidden owners, who also bought their shares through counter-letters and do not appear in the land register. He didn’t want to identify them.
“At the beginning, when we need liquidity, it happened situations where investors arrived too late in the race, so that we made a counter-letter, he said. Then it is disclosed to the tax authorities. ”
However, he assures us that today he does not want to “know anything more” about this process.
Properties for “optimization”
In the ads she posted on her agency’s website, Michelle Bergeron touts the large number of empty apartments in her client’s properties and the opportunities they represent for investors like her.
“6 plex, 100% VACANT and 75% STRIPPED, ready for 6 -3 1/2, permits already paid, will be received in January, project ready to do, no waste of time! », She wrote about the building for sale on rue de Chambly.
Simon Lévêque’s businesswoman and company, Gestion Immosimo, are also divesting a building in rue Adam. As part of her investigation of Pauline Cauchefer, Press heard from a tenant who left this property after repeated requests.
“She met us one by one,” she said. She met my neighbor to offer to sign a totally unofficial document that only gave her $ 2000 compensation. The tenants would have “refused en bloc,” but they ended up leaving after accepting more generous offers, up to $ 10,000, she said.
“They told us that it was no longer renovations, that it was to expand the building,” said the former resident of the six-unit building. In that case, they can ask us to leave. ”
The ex-tenant asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.
The broker’s announcement highlights the potential for expansion of the building, “VACANT and 80% STRIPPED to make 6 beautiful 5 ½”.
Pauline Cauchefer is asking $ 1.2 million for the property. She bought it for $ 625,000 last August.
It also divested itself of a quintuplex on avenue Laurier, on the Plateau Mont-Royal. Joined by Press, Pauline Cauchefer’s broker assures that he found a buyer as soon as he arrived on the market, a month and a half ago. “It sold right away, it’s just that I’m waiting for the financing,” said Michelle Bergeron, of L’Expert immobilier.
The broker uses the same words in the ad for this building as in the others: “5 dwellings on 3 floors, 4 of which are already VACANT, ready to be renovated! Great potential for optimization. ”
Her broker defends her
Broker Michelle Bergeron is keen to defend the young businesswoman.
“I find it sad for her. She is 24 years old. She started with nothing, ”she says.
Michelle Bergeron believes that Pauline Cauchefer “surely made mistakes”, but that she also “improved the lives of many people” by giving them a check allowing them to leave unsanitary apartments.
This is not the opinion of Guillaume Dostaler, of Entraide logement Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, who came to the aid of several of his tenants.
“We’re very concerned about that,” he said. There is a manual for this kind of practice, and that is not just the case with M.me Cauchefer. ”
PHOTO FROM FACEBOOK
The broker Michelle Bergeron, responsible for the sale of Pauline Cauchefer’s buildings, also loaned her 1.6 million with her husband, to finance one of the properties put on the market.
Mortgage broker and lender, for the same building
The broker who sells Pauline Cauchefer’s buildings is also a private lender. With her husband, Michelle Bergeron even took out a mortgage guarantee of 1.6 million in July on her quintuplex on Laurier Street East, before putting it on the market this fall.
Pauline Cauchefer is asking today 1.15 million for the property, which is about to find a taker.
Michelle Bergeron disclosed this financial relationship with her client in a notice to the Organisme d’autoréglementation du courtage immobilier du Québec (OACIQ), that Press obtained.
It is still prohibited, specifies the watchdog of the profession.
Conflict of interest
“The broker must choose between representing the interests of a selling client or those of a borrowing client. It should not serve both at the same time, as their interests are in conflict. In order to fulfill this obligation, he must go so far as to stop serving a client, ”says Joanne Beauvais, Director of Communications at the OACIQ.
Contacted by Press, Michelle Bergeron denies committing an infringement of the rules of her profession. “I did all of the disclosure notices,” the broker said.
She assures that she did not think that she would one day have the mandate to market the Laurier Street property when she and her husband loaned these funds to Pauline Cauchefer. “She was the one who asked me to put it up for sale,” says Michelle Bergeron.
The broker assures that she has obtained permission from her agency manager to make this transaction. “The OACIQ will quibble me,” she said. If I did wrong, I’ll find out. ”