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Donald Trump

No stranger to lawsuits over the past 25 years, Manhattan entrepreneur Donald Trump and the promoters of his Trump SoHo hotel-condominium are being sued by buyers who accuse them of fraudulently touting out-sized sales figures to encourage them to buy units and inflate the project's financial health, Reuters reports.

The complaint seeks to rescind purchase contracts, a refund of $1.75 million of deposits and unspecified punitive damages.

The lawsuit by 15 plaintiffs was filed in Manhattan federal court, less than four months after the 46-story building opened and three months after the offering plan went effective, allowing closings to begin.

Trump SoHo is a venture between the Trump Organization, which manages the building, and Bayrock Group LLC and Sapir Organization LLC, which formed its sponsor Bayrock/Sapir Organization LLC. The smallest units start at $1.2 million.

Trump SoHo New York

The complaint said the defendants had advertised the building was "30, 40, 50, 60 percent or more sold."

Instead, when the offering plan went effective, buyers learned that just 62 of the 391 units, or 16 percent, had been sold, the complaint said. A minimum of 15 percent was needed for the plan to go effective.

Many banks will not lend to buyers of condominium units when sponsors still own a large percentage of the units, often 50 percent.

"Not only were the plaintiffs individually misled into signing their contracts," lawyer Adam Leitman Bailey wrote, "the defendants' collective efforts to pump up sales through false and misleading statements caused all buyers to miss an option to revoke their contract that they all should have had in the absence of fraud."

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