The last time BOH checked in on billionaire landlord Charles Cohen—whose real estate portfolio includes New York’s Decoration & Design Building and the Pacific Design Center in California—he had lost ownership of the Decorative Center Houston in November after defaulting on the property’s mortgage. The loss was significant, but it’s a sideshow to the main event: Cohen’s long-running legal battle to fend off Fortress Investment Group.

The saga began in 2022, when Cohen borrowed $533 million from Fortress and put up a parcel of properties as collateral, along with a personal guarantee for $187 million. As his company began to miss payments, Fortress took legal action: In late 2024, the private equity lender forced an auction that ultimately led to its $76 million acquisition of the Design Center of the Americas in Dania Beach, Florida, in addition to several other Cohen-owned properties. Meanwhile, his personal guarantee still hung in the balance.

Now, according to Fortress, time’s up. After initially filing a motion to place Cohen’s 12-million-square-foot real estate portfolio into receivership last June, and facing opposition from the real estate mogul’s legal team, the lender is once again requesting that the court allow it to sell off assets as needed to make good on the loan.

In an affidavit filed last week, Cohen fought back. As Crain’s New York reports, Cohen claimed in the filing that he spent the last 18 months reducing his debt by selling off real estate assets and repaying $52 million with proceeds earned from those sales, thus delivering “exceptional results.”

Those efforts have included the sale of Cohen’s Midtown Manhattan properties 623 Fifth Avenue and 3 East 54th Street; he also claims he is in talks to sell an office building in White Plains, New York, and has plans to offload the 622 Third Avenue high-rise. Meanwhile, thanks to another loan dispute, The Real Deal reports, Cohen also said goodbye to his former company headquarters at 750 Lexington Avenue this week after the property was foreclosed and hit the auction block, only to be returned to lender U.S. Bank.

In the affidavit, Cohen argued that placing Cohen Brothers Realty in receivership could trigger a domino effect of defaults among its real estate holdings, forcing other lenders to recall their loans and ultimately leaving the company “wiped out.”

Fortress disputed the idea that receivership would trigger loan defaults, going on to say that Cohen “cannot be trusted” to oversee the sales process himself. The lender made similar claims in July, when it complained that Cohen had been shielding assets by transferring a $48 million megayacht (“complete with a gym, pizza oven, elevator and 10-meter pool,” according to The Real Deal) and his $20 million mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut, into a trust under his wife’s name.

Aside from the DCOTA, Cohen’s design center holdings haven’t been a fixture of his battle with Fortress. However, in last week’s filings, he stressed the importance of retaining ownership of the Pacific Design Center—a 1.6-million-square-foot complex in West Hollywood that he says serves as the centerpiece of his real estate portfolio. He claimed that losing it would not only “jeopardize” Cohen Brothers Realty, but could cause the business to “collapse.” Fortress challenged those claims, noting that the sale of the PDC would be a more efficient repayment option compared to the sale of Cohen’s New York assets.

According to the most recent filing by Fortress, the court agreed to hold off on ruling on the receivership motion for one week to allow Cohen to “present concrete evidence of a refinancing deal he purportedly is discussing with a particular real estate investment trust.” That time period has since elapsed, and Fortress claims that Cohen has failed to schedule a time for his presentation. As of Thursday, the lender yet again requested that the court grant the receivership motion in its favor. Either way, the next installment in the extended legal saga could well mark a turning point for Cohen’s design centers—and the brands that occupy them.