Casa Blanca Heads, Investors Trade Misconduct Allegations

18 November 2025

A clash between the founders of the New York City-based brokerage Casa Blanca and its investors has landed in court.

CEO Hannah Bomze sued two of its investors, Samuel Ben-Avraham and Christian Visdomini, in October over allegations that they’re withholding $1.2 million in commissions owed to her, according to a motion for summary judgment filed in New York Supreme Court.

Now those same investors are firing back with their own lawsuit accusing Bomze and her husband, chief operating officer Erez Zarur, of misappropriating the firm’s funds to pay for personal expenses, such as luxury vacations.

In their complaint, Ben-Avraham and Visdomini accuse Bomze and Zarur of “dishonest and disloyal acts,” including refusing them access to the company’s financials, investing more than $900,000 of the firm’s money into cryptocurrency and generating “phony documents to support [Bomze’s] fabricated claims for commission.”

Bomze denied the allegations, describing the lawsuit in a statement as retaliatory and “filled with slander and distractions.” She added that she expects the judge to dismiss the case as it lacks merit.

“I’ve spent five years building Casa Blanca into one of the fastest-growing and most respected brokerages in New York,” said Bomze in the statement. “I will continue to protect the company I built and the work that made it successful.”

Jim Kennedy, an attorney for Ben-Avraham and Visdomini, billed the investors’ case as “straightforward,” adding, “we have faith in the court’s ability to resolve it.”

Court documents reveal that what began as a legal action to collect unpaid commissions has since morphed into a messy falling out between Casa Blanca’s leadership and financial backers.

“Casa Blanca is not only at a crossroads, but also at a stalemate,” the investors state in their complaint. “Through their deliberate and knowing misconduct, Hannah and Erez are preventing Sam and Chris from protecting their interests — and those of our investors — in the Company.”

Inside the dispute

Bomze and Zarur launched Casa Blanca in 2019, backed by a $1.8 million investment from Ben-Avraham, also an early investor in WeWork and Ronnie Fieg’s streetwear brand, Kith. The firm, which marketed itself as the “Tinder of real estate” with its app-focused approach, now has roughly 200 agents.

In the lawsuit, Ben-Avraham and Visdomini allege Bomze and Zarur didn’t contribute any capital to start the brokerage, and that they together own 43 percent of the company, while Ben-Avraham owns 41 percent. (Visdomini owns just under 3 percent, while the rest is controlled by other investors.)

Bomze claims in her motion that between 2021 and 2025, she earned roughly $2.5 million in commissions from transactions where she personally represented the buyer or seller, though so far, she’d only received about $1.3 million. She alleges that under the terms of an independent broker agreement, she’s allowed to keep all of the fees associated with those deals.

However, Ben-Avraham and Visdomini pushed back on those claims, arguing that Bomze’s compensation agreement, which consists of a salary and 0.5 percent of the company’s commissions, doesn’t include a provision about personal deals.

The investors further allege that Bomze created fake documents to support her claims, and that even if the broker agreement existed before her request for commission payment, it was never shown to the board. The investors claim Bomze should have to pay back the commissions she’s already received.

“The Company could not operate if one officer received 100 percent of commissions on her own deals, and no investor would have agreed to fund the venture on that basis,” the complaint states. The board “has never discussed or approved any addendum or side agreement providing a personal commission entitlement to any Manager.”

But Bomze dismissed the investors’ claims, instead arguing that since she “personally procured and closed those transactions,” she’s entitled to the commissions.

“Under New York law, these commissions belong to me,” Bomze said in the statement. “I intentionally postponed collecting them and left the money in the company for years to support the business, strengthen cash flow, and fuel its growth.”

In addition to the commission dispute, Ben-Avraham and Visdomini also accused Bomze and Zarur of “paying hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal expenses with the Company’s credit cards.”

Among the expenses were “high-end restaurant charges, luxury vacations, charges related to the Bomzes’ children’s summer camp, gifts given to individuals unrelated to the Company or its business, and memberships to private tennis clubs, restaurants, and nightclubs in New York City.” The complaint also stated that Zarur used $900,000 of the firm’s funds to buy Bitcoin.

Louis Buckworth, who previously worked with Casa Blanca, allegedly reported his concerns about the alleged misappropriation of funds to Ben-Avraham in July, after he and his wife met Bomze and Zarur for drinks at Le Bilboquet in the Hamptons following the couple’s dinner at the restaurant.

Buckworth told Ben-Avraham that Bomze and Zarur paid for their entire one-on-one dinner with the corporate credit card even though it was a “purely social (and very expensive) dinner,” according to the complaint.

Ben-Avraham and Visdomini filed their lawsuit after negotiations with Bomze to withdraw her earlier action broke down, according to the complaint, which seeks damages related to what they describe as “egregious acts of betrayal.”

They’re also requesting the judge order Bomze and Zarur to provide them access to all of the company’s financials, including “banking statements, related software platforms, passwords and logins necessary to access the Company’s financial information.”

They’re also seeking declaratory judgment stating that Bomze is not owed any of the $1.2 million in alleged outstanding commissions and that she has no right to keep the $1.3 million she’s already been paid.