Chasen bankruptcy: Baltimore developer grilled by lawyers on business associates

Grilled under oath for more than four hours Tuesday, former Baltimore real estate mogul Brandon Chasen distanced himself from irregularities that appeared in his business empire’s finances during the lead-up to its collapse.

The bulk of the questioning at a creditors’ meeting came after the 40-year-old spoke highly of his longtime friend and business partner, Paul Davis, whom Chasen said he hasn’t spoken to in months but would “love to give … a big hug.” He testified that their relationship had “just fizzled out” after their real estate business plunged into bankruptcy, which has been a “traumatic event” for both of them to navigate. 

When asked if he blamed Davis for anything that’s happened, Chasen deflected, saying he could “probably sit here and Monday-morning quarterback” about bad business decisions. But when asked about specific practices surrounding the company’s finances, Chasen repeatedly pointed at Davis and his side of the business.

“Much of this was over my head,” Chasen, who gave several hours’ of testimony with few breaks Tuesday at the U.S. Trustee’s office in Baltimore’s federal courthouse, said at one point in the questioning. Davis did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday. 

Although Chasen has attributed much of the blame for his real estate enterprise’s 2024 breakdown to spiking interest rates and poor loan decisions, an attorney for the U.S. Trustee’s office raised emails and other records between company executives from the years leading up to the Chasen Cos. bankruptcy. They showed internal confusion about unusual transactions where money flowed between the firm’s construction wing and acquisition company, which a former executive had described as a “mess.”

“I trusted that Paul was doing it the right way,” Chasen said. While he managed operations, Davis was largely responsible for finding investors and handling other issues involving capital, Chasen said.

Bankruptcy Court Judge Nancy V. Alquist last month granted a request by creditors to take testimony from Davis about company finances. At previous bankruptcy hearings, Chasen has alleged that his former business partner doctored bank statements that were required for a loan. On Tuesday, he said Davis changed an account number “in some kind of Machiavellian way to protect” himself.

Chasen founded his real estate business in 2017 and started buying up properties in the Mount Vernon, South Baltimore and Fells Point neighborhoods, renovating the buildings and leasing out new, upscale apartment units. Later foraying into luxury yacht rentals, Chasen’s real estate empire was named by The Financial Times as one of the fastest-growing businesses in the country at one point. 

Surrounded by creditors and attorneys Tuesday, Chasen said Davis, who had been involved with the real estate business since its inception, became a co-owner in 2021 or 2022. Chasen kept a 65% stake in the ownership, while Davis held the remaining 35%.

In 2023, the company started laying off workers, and by 2024, the firm started defaulting on multimillion-dollar loans. Construction stalled, and buildings were foreclosed in the middle of renovations, leaving unfinished projects throughout the city that still sit incomplete. Creditors moved to push Chasen Construction into Chapter 11 reorganization bankruptcy in early 2025; by that summer, Chasen himself entered Chapter 7 liquidation bankruptcy.

The real estate investor was questioned repeatedly at Tuesday’s creditors’ meeting about when the business started going south. He initially said “things started to fluctuate” from 2023 onward, citing climbing interest rates as the Federal Reserve hiked rates to combat inflation.

“We were going from a 2% interest rate to 8%-plus,” he said. And landing in about $80 million in debt, it “explodes pretty fast” with an interest rate that high.

The deadline for Chasen’s creditors to object to discharging his debt is currently Oct. 31. Zvi Guttman, the trustee in the matter, has 10 days to file a statement of presumed abuse of bankruptcy rules.

Tuesday’s questioning varied from Chasen’s business associates — he was asked whether several had been on his private jet or had gone golfing with him at the Baltimore Country Club — and intricate details of company finances. He was prodded about appraisals at the center of a federal lawsuit alleging that real estate services company Cushman & Wakefield inflated the values of certain Chasen Cos. properties, causing StanCorp Mortgage investors to issue loans that they could not recover when Chasen Cos. defaulted.

Chasen was asked if a certain apartment renovation “was 100% done at any point in time” and if he’d be surprised to find out that it wasn’t.

“I’m not surprised by anything anymore,” Chasen responded.

“I’m saying nothing surprises me because people say things that aren’t 100% accurate, and I take them at face value,” he said.