BUYER/BIDDERS BEWARE 

WILLIAMS &; WILLIAMS REAL ESTATE AUCTION

Being the high bidder at a Williams

& Williams auction can mean nothing.

SELLERS BEWARE

Williams & Williams may not work to get you the highest or best price.

BROKERS &; AGENTS BEWARE

Williams & Williams may pick an unrepresented buyer over your client,

even if your client is willing to pay more for the property.

LIEN HOLDERS BEWARE

Williams and Williams may pitch a deal to you from a buyer who is paying

much less than other buyers would pay, resulting in less payment on your

debt.

THE FACTS

Property Management Services, Inc. (“PMSI”) was the high bidder on the Founders Tower

twentieth floor former restaurant in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma at an auction conducted by

Williams & Williams (“Williams”) in 2022. However, the property was sold instead to Eliud Menendez (“Menendez”) under his limited liability company name, Thor Properties, LLC. PMSI subsequently filed a complaint against Williams and its managing broker, Philip Heiliger

(“Heiliger”) with the Oklahoma Association of Realtors.

The purpose of this website is to set forth facts that may interest persons who are following the

story of what is to become of this unique space, and perhaps to counter some of the

misinformation that has been fed to local press. It will also serve as a warning to those who may

be considering listing a property or attending a Williams auction.

When they attended the Williams’ auction, as with any real estate auction, PMSI did its research

in advance. Based upon that investigation, PMSI set a maximum bid to avoid getting caught up

in the hype and excitement of the auction, tempting them perhaps, to overpay. PMSI’s

maximum bid on the restaurant property, calculated as a percentage of the assessed value, was

$1,531,000. You can imagine how surprised (and frankly, delighted) they were when they were

the high bidder at $675,000.

In accordance with a contract drafted solely by Williams, PMSI was required to tender a ten

percent earnest money deposit for each property. It was a reserve auction in which the seller

had seven business days during which to accept or reject the high bid (although the bid

remained open indefinitely unless withdrawn in writing by the bidder—which never occurred).

During that interim period our contact at Williams, Marcus Sippy (“Sippy”) assured PMSI through

its real estate agent that the only hold up to acceptance of its bid was for the Small Business

Administration to agree to release its lien on the property.

Williams gave PMSI every reason to believe that all they were waiting on to close was that lien

release. Sippy intimated that this was to occur any day. He volunteered that the person who

needed to sign was new to that SBA office and was just being a stickler for proper procedure,

insisting that every “I” be dotted, and every “t” crossed.

He lied.

In fact, behind closed doors and undisclosed to PMSI or its agent, Williams was negotiating a

sale to another buyer. As eventually revealed, the very person PMSI outbid at the auction,

Menendez, contacted Williams after the sale. He proposed making another offer on the

restaurant,

That a real estate investor would do something like that is not surprising—such cut-throat tactics

are hardly uncommon in this business. What was shocking was that Williams was a willing

participant in this ruse. While PMSI was being told that they were just waiting on that SBA

signature, Sippy gave not so much as a hint that they were entertaining a post-auction offer. At

no time after the auction did Williams let PMSI know that the very bidder PMSI bested at the

auction had proffered a purchase proposal, post auction, that exceeded its winning bid. (That

offer was still less than half of what PMSI was prepared to pay for this asset).

When Sippy finally let its agent know that the property had been sold to another buyer (he

refused to disclose to whom) everyone was outraged. In response to questioning as to how

Williams could treat its agent and her client that way, Sippy told the agent “We ran it by legal”.

PMSI interprets that to mean that some lawyer told Williams they could get away with it.

Thereafter, PMSI filed its complaint against Philip Heiliger. Most of what is now known

happened, was first learned at the Realtor Board’s hearing of PMSI’s complaint.

Represented by counsel at the hearing, Williams, to justify withholding information from PMSI

stated, incredibly, that they did so because they did not want to start a “bidding war”. This,

despite being in the auction business! An auction is, by purpose and design, exactly that—a

bidding war. And a bidding war is precisely what is in the best interest of any seller of real

estate. Williams provided no explain to him why they wanted to prevent their seller from getting

the highest possible price for his property.

Their excuse for not soliciting a higher offer from PMSI was that PMSI “never told them that we

would pay more.” Think about that. For what possible reason would PMSI raise its offer when it:

1) outbid everyone at the auction; and 2) Williams allowed PMSI to believe that its offer was the

only one on the table? Did they really expect PMSI to bid against itself?

Since Williams never told PMSI that there was another buyer in play, it was easy for Menendez

to “outbid” us. He knew exactly what PMSI’s bid was. PMSI, on the other hand, had no idea that

another offer had been made, let alone the amount. They never knew they needed to up its offer

to acquire the property. Had they reopened the auction between the two competing buyers,

PMSI would have immediately raised its offer to 800k. It would have continued to increase its

offer as needed until bidding reached that 1.5 million plus strike price. But then again, that might

have started a bidding war—and Williams was having none of that.

At the hearing, Williams further revealed that they told the seller that PMSI was insisting on an

immediate closing and was unwilling to wait on the SBA to release their lien.

That too, was a lie.

Like any good agent, she tried to hustle Williams up on getting the property to closing. PMSI

would have, in fact, paid as much more for the property as it took to secure the purchase. It

would have signed an extension and waited however long it took to get the release. But

Williams gave PMSI neither the opportunity to bid again nor to sign an extension.

They lied to the seller as well.

Williams made it appear that the choice was between a lower bid by a party that was

threatening to withdraw their bid and a much higher offer from someone willing to wait. While

that was not true, the seller made the only decision he could, based upon the misinformation

and the lack of information Williams provided. It was a proverbial “no-brainer”.

At the hearing Williams claimed they were only following the instructions they received from

their seller. A seller who, like PMSI, was denied the information that would have resulted in the

best possible deal for him (and a fair opportunity for PMSI to buy the property).

All it would have taken was a call, a text, or an email with the simple statement that another

offer had been made, asking if PMSI wanted to raise its offer. PMSI, its agent, and the seller will

never know how much they could have sold the property for and all because, says Williams,

they were simply and faithfully doing what the seller told them to do.

Apparently, before Williams consulted counsel to determine what they could get away with,

Sippy assumed that Williams would do the right thing. Among the information Williams provided

as evidence to exonerate itself, Williams disclosed that Sippy sent the following email to

Menendez following Menendez’ clandestine, post-auction offer:

Tuesday, April 19, 2022, 8:09 A.M.

“They have until Friday, but I’d imagine we’ll know something by Thursday. They will

need to address the offer they received at auction first. They’ll also likely have to give

that buyer an opportunity to beat your offer as well if they decide to take your

offer into consideration and may require you to sign a contract and put the

nonrefundable earnest deposit down first. It’s only fair since they were the high bidder at

auction and those were the terms they had to live by to have their offer submitted.”

emphasis added

Evidently, Sippy’s initial reaction to Menendez’ post-auction offer was that Williams had to, in all

fairness, give PMSI a shot at beating the new offer (just as PMSI would have done if the higher

offer had been made at the auction itself). Since that did not happen, it appears that Sippy

thought better of it or was perhaps warned against doing so, after they “ran it by legal.”

So, it is not as though allowing PMSI to increase its bid did not occur to them. Rather, this was

an intentional decision by Williams to favor one bidder over another and, in doing so,

shortchange the seller as well. It is PMSI’s opinion that they also defrauded the SBA, who was

required to write-down a taxpayer funded loan at a greater loss than necessary. Williams also

cheated PMSI’s agent out of her commission.

The Board of the Oklahoma Association of Realtors found Mr. Heiliger guilty of violation of its

Code of Ethics. He was issued a letter of warning, fined, and ordered to complete a Code of

Ethics course within 90 days, under threat of suspension if he failed to do so.

Given the damage Williams caused to multiple parties, this was a relative slap on the wrist.

Nonetheless, Heiliger appealed these sanctions, proving that to this day Williams does not

acknowledge that they did anything wrong and serving as a warning to buyers and

sellers alike the risk they take in doing business with this organization. Perhaps Williams

believes that PMSI should be grateful that they and Menendez let it keep the annex.

Of course, Heiliger lost that appeal and was ordered to comply with the sanctions as imposed

by the Board.

This then, is the character the persons and the organization you will be dealing with if you hire

Williams to sell a property or attend and auction as a bidder.

Again…beware!