One Allston/Brighton landlord sues another over financial status of two condos it's trying to sell

One of Allston/Brighton's larger landlords, Samia Cos., today sued another one of the neighborhood's larger landlords, Anwar Faisal, over two condos Samia owns in a building Faisal's company manages on Gordon Street in Allston.

In its lawsuit, filed in Suffolk Superior Court, Samia charges Faisal's Alpha Management Corp. is, whether intentionally or not, making it impossible to sell off two condos Samia owns in the 19-unit 45-47 Gordon St..

Samia alleges that Alpha has been claiming for three years now that Samia owes it past fees on the condos but that each time Alpha submits a demand for the money, it never responds to Samia's request for records proving Samia actually does owe money.

Between March 2021 and March 2024, the contact between the parties was best characterized by Alpha's period notice of a past due balance which was met with Samia's renewed request of the condo records and the assurance that the Plaintiff [Samia] would pay any past due balance that Alpha's Condo Records demonstrated was owed.

No records were provided, and the matter would go dormant until the cycle was repeated at various intervals of time.

Samia says it decided in January of this year to sell the units and signed listing agreements with a broker. In March, once again, Samia says it asked for the financial records it says would show whether or not it actually owes Alpha any past-due amounts. "Predictably, there was no response from either Alpha or the [condo building] trust," the complaint states.

Samia says it gave Alpha one last chance, in a letter written on April 5 - which this time Samia says it served on Alpha by hiring a constable to deliver it, rather than relying on certified mail. The company says it gave its fellow landlord until April 17 to provide the documentation it had been asking for for three years, but that it once again got no reply.

Samia says that because the financial issue remains unsettled, it's had to withdraw the condos from possible sale and so was forced to sue.

Samia is asking a judge to order Alpha to stop violating its "fiduciary duty" as a manager of the building and to hand over records, including "all votes, correspondence, meeting minutes, notices, account ledgers, banking ledgers, and the like" tout suite and to reimburse it for all the trouble it says it's had to go through to get the documents.

Faisal has until Oct. 15 to answer the complaint, court records show.

Complete complaint (4.2M PDF).