Brandon Miller Legal, Financial and Real Estate Problems

More than two years after developer Brandon Miller died by suicide, his widow and his business partner are still battling his creditors in court.

In a lawsuit filed in early August, Westchester Fire Insurance Company sued Miller’s estate, his widow, Candice Miller, and his company, Real Estate Equities Corporation, over a $150,000 payout on a mechanic’s lien bond tied to a Harlem development. The lawsuit is the latest to emerge from the tangled web of debts and troubled real estate deals that Miller left behind.

Legal filings in Surrogate’s Court and state Supreme Court provide glimpses into Miller’s finances — including a sharp drop in the balance of a brokerage account — in the months leading up to his July 2024 death, and the chaos that followed. In an affidavit filed in June, his business partner Mark Seigel wrote: “To say that his death sent shockwaves through my life and business would be an understatement.”

Seigel, Miller and Kinsmen Property Group’s Ari Zagdanski were in the midst of negotiations to turn a stalled Nolita life sciences project into apartments when Miller died. Seigel describes a series of lunches the three attended at New York power spots Fasano’s, Cipriani’s and the Regency, and in Los Angeles, between February and May 2024 to hash out details of the reimagined development at 156-166 Bowery Street.

Two weeks after Miller’s death, Seigel again joined Zagdanski at Fauna in West Hampton “to discuss plans for the new project given Brandon’s death,” according to the affidavit, where Zagdanski suggested bringing Abe and Scott Schnay’s SK Development into the deal. As they moved ahead with the new project with the Schnays, “it was my understanding that REEC’s demolition obligations under the ground lease would be modified with respect to the new project,” Seigel wrote.

“So I was completely surprised, when later on August 5, 2024, I received a notice of default for failure to timely commence demolition,” he said in the affidavit.

Zagdanski sued REEC in March 2025, claiming the firm owes more than $5.3 million in back rent, demolition costs, tax reimbursements and outstanding liens on the property. They are still battling in court. A year ago, then-Mayor Eric Adams announced the city would move forward with a housing project at 156-166 Bowery Street with Kinsmen, one of three sites offered as alternatives to the canceled Elizabeth Street Garden development.

Meanwhile, Candice Miller is fighting a subpoena in Surrogate’s Court from her late husband’s largest personal creditor, BMO Bank. The Chicago-based lender extended Brandon Miller an unsecured $11.3 million loan in January 2024.

More than $9 million remains outstanding, according to court filings, and BMO is now questioning the authenticity of the UBS brokerage account statements Miller used to obtain the loan.

The bank alleges that account statements Brandon Miller provided before his death differ dramatically from those Candice Miller later submitted as administrator of his estate. For February 2024, Brandon Miller’s statement showed a balance of roughly $26 million, while the version submitted by Candice Miller reflected a balance of about $482,000.

“These discrepancies raise red flags and significant concerns,” BMO said in a filing, arguing that additional records are needed to determine “whether the decedent provided BMO with fraudulent account statements” or “whether any funds … had been improperly or fraudulently transferred.”

BMO is seeking additional UBS account statements dating back to September 2023, a request Candice Miller’s attorneys are contesting as “an overbroad time frame.” Miller’s lawyer, Scott Salant, argues in an affidavit that BMO’s subpoena should focus on the money in the accounts from the date of Brandon’s death through July 2025.

An account overview from Candice’s version showed a total of more than $20 million as late as December 2022. By December 2023, the balance was about $400,000, rising to $1.4 million in January 2024 and then below $500,000 at the time of the February statement.

Salant, Seigel and lawyers for BMO Bank, Westchester Fire Insurance Company and Zagdanski did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Another REEC property that was in progress at the time of Miller’s death has taken a different direction. Brandon Miller’s East Village project is finally landing office tenants, after years of problems and delays.

Lender Parkview Financial brought in GDSNY in January to oversee leasing and development management at the property at 1 St. Mark’s Place, and it’s unclear whether REEC or Seigel are still involved.