Florida Woman Bequeathed Donald Trump Condo In Senior Community

Forbes

A Florida woman with no apparent personal connection to Donald Trump bequeathed the former president a condo in a community for the 55-and-up crowd. Forbes staff writer Zach Everson joins "Forbes Talks" to discuss.   Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2024/08/29/donald-trump-florida-inherited-florida-senior-condo/  Subscribe to FORBES: https://www.youtube.com/user/Forbes?sub_confirmation=1  Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:  https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript  Stay Connected Forbes newsletters: https://newsletters.editorial.forbes.com Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes More From Forbes:  http://forbes.com  Forbes covers the intersection of entrepreneurship, wealth, technology, business and lifestyle with a focus on people and success.

Transcript

00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me now

00:07is my colleague, Forbes staff writer, Zach Everson. Zach, thanks for coming on.

00:13Thanks for having me on again, Brittany.

00:15Zach, your latest piece really reads like a Mad Libs, so I would love to read the headline

00:20and then you break it down for us. This is your headline. Florida woman bequeathed Donald

00:25Trump condo in senior community. So first, what do we know about this woman, Barbara

00:30Fisher?

00:32Not a ton of information. She, there was no trail of political donations. There was nothing

00:41that seemed to personally connect her to Donald Trump. She had served for two non-consecutive

00:46terms as the secretary of her condo board. And she left, you know, she did not have a

00:51lot to leave behind according to her will, but she gave the, uh, the former president

00:56substantial amount of it.

00:58She didn't have a lot to leave behind, but what else was in her will? And what was the

01:02message specifically to the former president?

01:06So she left, uh, her friend who was going to manage the state got $50,000 in the 2018

01:12Honda Accord. A worker at a nearby Publix grocery store got $3,000 to start a new happy

01:17life. There was an animal rescue organization in the Palm Beach area that got $100,000.

01:23And then there was Donald Trump address Mar-a-Lago who got the condo, uh, in the will. It said

01:27to sell as he, she, he sees fit, but originally it had said, hopefully the monies of which

01:32she'll be used to further the construction of the wall between the U S and Mexico.

01:36She did cross that part off though, and initial it. Um, so while that's, you know, not necessarily

01:41her intent anymore, it's kind of clear that was her intent at some point.

01:46So her revised intent was to sell as he see fit Donald Trump. Your reporting does know

01:53about the condo. How'd he find out? And what has he done with it?

01:58Um, they did not respond to inquiries. So the best we can tell is that he would have

02:04found out about a month before the will was filed. When, uh, the person who was managing

02:08the estate reached out to him, um, to inform him of this. And also there's an option where

02:14beneficiaries can contest, uh, who gets to administer the will. And he, he waived that

02:18right. So he got it there. Now, the reason we saw this was that looking at his annual

02:24financial disclosure, which my editor, Dan Alexander was going over line by line. He's

02:30the one who handles our, um, you know, Trump valuation. He noticed that there was a new LLC

02:35there that he had not seen before. And we started pulling the string and that's, you know, it showed

02:40that it was a condo in Palm beach, started looking up details on the condo in Palm beach,

02:45saw that had been transferred to him and that he had then transferred it to the LLC. So he has not

02:50sold it. He's, he's owned it for about a year and a half right now. And, uh, you know, has not sold

02:56it. So, or at least I did not sell it as of a month ago. Um, and it doesn't look like it's been

03:00on the market since. So he's still sitting on that right now. Condo in Palm beach. What else,

03:06what other details do you have aside from that regarding the property?

03:12Um, you know, it's, it's, it's in a senior sort of living area. Uh, members of the residents have

03:17to be 55 years old or, or up at least one resident of the place. They do not allow anybody under 18

03:23to live there full time. You do have to get approved by the condo board, uh, to become a

03:29member. Uh, the approval form does ask potential new members slash home condo buyers to check off

03:35a box if they've ever been indicted or ever been convicted of a felony. So, um, you know, I think,

03:42uh, president Trump, if he was in fact required to fill out those forms, I think at the time he

03:46would have been required to fill it out, it would have just been indicted. Um, but I did reach out

03:50to the condo association, multiple members on it. I did not get any responses. Uh, you know,

03:56I'm curious if they actually knew that he lived there and if they actually made him complete the

04:01background check. So, uh, those, those are two questions that remained unanswered sadly.

04:05But he's still sitting on this condo. So how much is it worth?

04:10Um, it's worth about $150,000. You know, we didn't do a full on valuation of this one. Typically

04:15I'd look at some of the comps and all this other stuff. He valued it at between, um,

04:20I think it was 150,000 and, or excuse me, between 100,000 and $250,000 on his financial disclosure.

04:27And the person who handled the estate valued it at about $150,000. And I looked at some of

04:32the comps and that, that seemed about right. Zach, you've been covering money in politics

04:38for a while now. And normally when you think about people's inheritances, people's wills,

04:43they normally don't bequeath their properties to former presidents or other politicians.

04:48Have you ever seen anything like this? I haven't, but I want to start looking for it more. I just

04:55don't know an easy way to go through it. I mean, if you think about it, it does kind of make sense

05:00that maybe some of these, you know, seniors who are, you know, like, like Ms. Fisher, childless,

05:06never got married, uh, no surviving siblings, maybe they would do something like this. You know,

05:11it's a substantial amount of her estate. It's a drop in the bucket for Trump, who's worth,

05:16you know, billions of dollars. So, uh, sadly I can't think of any way to just

05:21search will, you know, search databases of wills to see, you know, if Donald Trump pops up,

05:27but you have to kind of know who to look for. So, uh, you know, that said, we have not found

05:31any other items on his financial disclosures that would make us think he's received any other,

05:37you know, that would show he's received any other gifts like this. Well, if you do,

05:40I'm sure you'll be back on and give us all the details, but for now,

05:44Zach Everson, thank you so much for your reporting. I appreciate you coming on.

05:47Thanks, Brittany.

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