Flip This House

Flip This House (Courtesy Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

Flip This House is a television series which airs on the A&E (Arts and Entertainment) television network. Each episode spotlights the purchase and renovation of a single unit. All episodes included listing the price of the purchase, the cost of renovation, and the market value (including potential profit) of the "flipped" property.

Season One

In season one, the series followed the activities surrounding the Charleston-based Trademark Properties, founded by Richard C. Davis.

Charleston Team

Richard C. Davis - Founder and head of the company.
Ginger Alexander - Davis' right-hand associate who assists with the flipping of houses
Dawn Nosal - Project coordinator
Kevin Molony - Head of construction during the flipping process
Vance Sudano - One of the real estate brokers who sells the finished houses

Due to a contractual disagreement A&E decided not to invite Trademark back for season two of the show. In July 2006, Trademark Properties filed a lawsuit against A&E alleging breach of contract and fraud. Davis signed a series deal with TLC, and the new series, originally titled The Real Deal and now named The Real Estate Pros, began airing April 21, 2007.

Season Two

In season two, the show was recast with a team from San Antonio, and another from Atlanta.

San Antonio Team

Armando Montelongo - Montelongo House Buyers co-founder, David's brother
Veronica Montelongo - Armando's wife, the company's sales executive
David Montelongo - Montelongo House Buyers co-founder, Armando's brother
Melina Montelongo - David's wife, who handles marketing

Atlanta Team

Sam Leccima - Founder of Leccima Real Estate, accused of fraud in May 2007.
Shanni Leccima - Sam's wife and partner
Lamont Martin - Sam's right-hand man and construction manager
Angela Wilford - Works for Keller-Williams Realty and collaborates with the Leccimas to sell the flipped houses.

In May 2007, television station WAGA in Atlanta exposed the Season Two episodes starring local developer Sam Leccima to be staged and fraudulent. This same report also revealed that Leccima has been the subject of numerous legal actions stemming from fraudulent real estate solicitations, some of which were related to his activity on the show. A&E has denied any knowledge of Leccima's activities and has stopped producing episodes. These episodes are no longer aired.

Season Three

In season three, a new team from New Haven was introduced. Additionally, the team from Atlanta recast with a new group of people. Only the Montelongo team from San Antonio continued their roles from the prior season.

New Haven Team

Nathanial "Than" Merrill
Paul Esajian
Jeremy Black
Lori Parks
JD

Atlanta Team

Note: the Atlanta cast has changed since last season.

Angela Wilford
Harris Wilford
Scott Tremmel
Danielle Anderson

San Antonio Team

Armando Montelongo - Founder Armando Montelongo Companies
Veronica Montelongo - Armando's wife, who sells houses also V.P. of Armando Montelongo Comp.
Randy - Contractor who works on the houses
Christopher Mendoza - Armando Montelongo Companies Intern

(David and Melina have since walked away from the show and are no longer featured in the opening credits. David has begun Montelongo Developments, run out of the same office complex as Armando and Veronica. One episode stated that Veronica has since taken the place of David.)

Controversy

Season 1

In 2007, Flip This House is the subject of a breach of contract and fraud lawsuit brought by Trademark Properties, a South Carolina real estate company that starred in the show's first season.

In the several million dollar civil lawsuit, Trademark and Mr. Davis, Flip This House's original executive producer and star, charged A&E and the show's Departure Films production company with breach of contract, fraud and seven other charges. In the lawsuit Mr. Davis claimed to have not received any financial compensation from A&E or Departure for Flip This House's first season and alleged that they had actually created the show themselves, but they called it Worst To First instead of the Flip This House show. He claims that he pitched the show to A&E, which later agreed to produce and televise 13 episodes of the series. Mr. Davis alleges that A&E agreed that although A&E would pay all the show's production costs, the parties would be 50/50 partners in any profits generated from the project and agreed to prepare a written agreement stating such. Instead, according to Mr. Davis, A&E aired the program, using his likeness without his permission, and changing the name of the show from 'Worst to First' to 'Flip This House' so as not to arouse suspicion that they were going to use the show concept and had no intention or ever paying Mr. Davis for the use of his show title and show concept.

According to Mr. Davis, the network allegedly never provided an agreement that reflected the terms of their alleged verbal agreement throughout the entire period of Flip This House's first-season production. According to Mr. Davis, "A&E defrauded and misappropriated and stole the project for A&E's own use and benefit, and merely changed the name so as not to have to pay for the show concept." Allegedly it wasn't until around March 2006 that Mr. Davis learned that A&E had decided to produce and air another season of 'Flip this House' without using his services (which he would not have agreed to anyway, since he was never paid for the first season).

A&E claims that they provided Mr. Davis with 'powerful' free advertising for his company 'Trademark.' Also A&E also alleged that it only moved forward with a second season after Davis announced that he was launching a new reality show with the TLC cable television network.

The case is still ongoing and The Real Estate Pros, starring Mr. Davis and the rest of his staff at Trademark Properties was debuted as The Real Deal premiered on TLC cable television network on April 21, 2007.

Season 2

Sam Leccima is an Atlanta businessman who served as one of the show's second season stars. His 'Leccima Real Estate Company' was one of two real estate firms that the show's second season followed. Mr. Leccima may have convinced A&E that he was a wiz at renovating homes and flipping them for a profit. In 2007 there were reports of allegations that Leccima was a fraud who made fake renovations and never flipped anything except the stacks of money he allegedly scammed investors out of. The allegations center on the Atlanta, Georgia area.

According to a two-part television news report broadcast by Atlanta's WAGA-TV Fox affiliate in May 2007, Mr. Leccima didn't own the houses he claimed to have sold on Flip This House and also staged some of the renovations depicted on the show (ceiling panels were later seen falling, which was blamed on the inferior work of a sub-contractor in the TV series).

WAGA (in Atlanta) also reported that Mr. Leccima didn't possess a real estate license when Flip This House was filming prior to last summer's second season premiere, claiming that Mr. Leccima "does not bear a good reputation for honesty, trustworthiness, integrity, and competence."

According to WAGA, he even staged at least one fake open house in which some of his friends posed as buyers for the home. In addition, he even claimed to sell another home that he didn't own.

A&E announced that it was pulling Leccima's Flip This House episodes off its broadcast schedule and denied any knowledge or part in the frauds shown on their airways.

From the A&E web site on July 1, 2007 A&E's Claim To Not Know Anything About All Of The Fraud: "We are dismayed to learn of these allegations. A&E Television Networks is not a party to any of the transactions shown in Flip This House and has not received any formal complaints about the properties or sales. Based on these allegations, A&E is taking all episodes featuring Mr. Leccima off the air pending further investigation of the claims. After the second season of Flip This House, A&E decided to change direction and focus on different cast members, as we did after the first season when another controversial situation happened, and we no longer work with Mr. Leccima or Trademark Properties."

Mr. Leccima has suggested that A&E and Flip This House's production company knew what was going on.

"Ask anybody who works in television how a reality show is made and you'll find that ours was a very typical approach," Leccima told The AP.