Realtor Sold Luxury Apartments Containing Asbestos

Realtors for an Upper East Side Manhattan condo complex sold units to unsuspecting buyers despite the fact that they knew there was asbestos inside, several buyers maintain.

The realtor for the complex, a business called “Related Companies”, deceived at least 6 residents of the Carnegie Park complex, states a Manhattan Supreme Court lawsuit that was filed last week.

The company “knew it was selling apartments with asbestos-containing materials.”

The luxury apartments, located on fashionable East 94th Street, were once apartments that were converted to condominiums in 2015.

It was believed that all asbestos was removed during the refurbishment of the apartments, but it was discovered later that several of them still contained mastic under the wooden floors.

Many mastics (glues) of decades past included asbestos as one of the product’s ingredients. Damage to the floors can reveal the mastic and cause asbestos fibers to become airborne.

There is also evidence that renovations inside the apartments were done without taking the proper precautions when working with or around asbestos.

Buyers paid anywhere from a million to several million for their luxury digs, and what they got – lawyers for the plaintiffs say – is a lot of worry about the fact that they’re living with toxic asbestos.

“We have reason to believe [Related Companies] was fully aware of the fact that there was asbestos … at the time our clients went into contract,” said the attorney for the plaintiff. Related Companies denied these allegations and stated that they would “vigorously” defend themselves in court.

“Carnegie Park is a first-class building and several of our senior executives and their families have also made it their home,” a spokeswoman for the company told the New York Post.

Mastics and other glues that held tiles or wood floors in place often contained asbestos. So did the tiles themselves, including both floor and ceiling tiles.

Anyone purchasing a home that contains old tiles or floors that likely haven’t been renovated should be aware that asbestos could be present and should hire a licensed individual to inspect the materials and confirm or deny the presence of the toxic mineral.