Three Interesting Charging Order Opinions In The Estates Bid-Rigging Scheme

In this article we consider three interesting charging order opinions that arise from the same judgment. The genesis of the judgment is a scheme concocted by a fellow named Craig Brooksby that he ran primarily through a company called The Estates LLC and other business entities. How this scheme worked is related in one of the court opinions as follows. Members of The Estates paid a monthly subscription fee to access to its services, including exclusive access to its website. Members could obtain information on properties that were available for purchase, or which were being foreclosed upon, and there was also information about the value of these properties, their locations, and whether they had any debt on them, etc. The members of The Estates were each required to have their own LLC, called a “bidding LLC”, to be used by them to purchase properties.

Once a member had selected a property to be acquired, the member would then bid against other members by submitting the maximum amount they were willing to pay. Either Brooksby or one of his assistants would then take the steps to buy the property, including showing up at auctions to bid and hopefully acquire the property. The members of The Estates had all agreed that only one member could bid at a public auction for a property and that they would not show up to bid against each other. If the bid submitted by Brooksby or one of his assistants was successful, the winning member would then pay The Estates an acquisition fee.