Central Colorado News

When Claudio Borgiotti decided to exercise his right of first refusal to buy a second unit in the Chateau Aspen, he came up against another owner in the building whom he was told was trying to buy the same unit.

While Borgiotti ultimately landed the unit after filing a petition in court, he told the Central Colorado News that he had paid more money than originally planned and some of it was allegedly to the other owners/buyers, Tamar and Stephen Olitsky.

“They were manipulating the right of first refusal in a weird way,” said Borgiotti, an IT executive who lives in Virginia and enjoys skiing in Aspen with his daughters Giovanna and Bella. “I'm irritated because they essentially leveraged their position to profit from my transaction. Who would be happy about a neighbor taking money from them? You wonder, did they really want to buy the place or were they just trying to extort some funds out of their neighbor?”

Claudio Borgiotti with daughters Giovanna (left) and Bella. | Facebook

Building manager Diane Spicer declined to comment. Borgiotti isn’t the only owner in the Chateau Aspen who has an ax to grind. When Joseph Wise lived in the Chateau Aspen, he skied 100 days a year but it got to a point where he wanted to relocate to a warmer destination.

“I’m getting old to where I wasn’t skiing as much and wanted to go back to North Carolina where I was raised,” he said. 

Wise decided to sell his Chateau Aspen unit and was pleased when he found a prospective buyer, willing to pay his asking price until the Olitskys allegedly made a counteroffer.

“When the buyer told me that the Olitskys asked him to pay $50,000 to back away, I thought the homeowners association (HOA) should have intervened in favor of the highest bidder, which would have benefited me,” Wise told Central Colorado News. “But after the buyer backed out, the Olitskys had the right to buy the property at the price that was offered.”

That’s due to the right of first refusal (ROFR), a provision in any given real estate contract that permits someone to be the first party allowed to purchase a particular property when it's offered for sale. 

“I don't know anything about it other than it seems like they're trying to acquire either the majority share or the whole building to redevelop it,” said Joshua Landis, a real estate broker with Christie's International Real Estate. “Maybe they just want to control it so they can control all the decisions for the HOA? Once you own a certain amount, then you have the power to make all the decisions. In theory, if somebody gets 66% of an HOA, they then can control assessments and upgrades.”

Rather than selling to the prospective buyer, Wise said he sold the unit to his neighbors, the Olitskys, for just under $2 million, although he’d listed it for $2.3 million.

“I was not privy to any of that information other than the fact that there was a counteroffer on my unit,” Wise said. “What the buyer should have probably done was just bid and I might have gotten another $20,000 or $30,000 for it but it would have forced the Olitskys to pay more.”

The Chateau Aspen, at 630 East Cooper Ave., is in a popular neighborhood minutes away from restaurants and attractions such as the John Denver Sanctuary, Wheeler Opera House, the Aspen Airport and the Aspen Hurst Theatre. Chateau Aspen is also one of the older buildings in which real estate agreements containing a ROFR are common.

“Chateau Aspen happens to have a right of first refusal written into their condo declaration, which is their main governing document as an HOA,” said Landis, who recalled having a client purchase a unit in the Chateau Aspen. “Maybe half the older buildings have them.”

Landis told Central Colorado News that a complaint was filed after his client purchased the Chateau Aspen unit.

“Nobody exercised their right of first refusal and we closed,” Landis said. “We followed all the proper protocol but then, after the fact, the owners, who I guess are the Olitskys, complained that they did not get to purchase the property. My understanding is that they would have exercised the right of first refusal but the HOA had the wrong address on file for them. So they didn't properly receive notice.”