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# Foot doctor caught in middle of broker bickering
- URL: https://www.smdp.com/foot-doctor-caught-in-middle-of-broker-bickering/
- Published: 2002-03-13T16:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-23T00:08:09.000Z
- Author: Guest Author
- Tags: Health, Santa Monica, #archive-import

for commissions was paid, only to be later disputed.

Medical Associates, a subsidiary of Held Properties which owns the Medical Center Santa Monica at 20th Street and Santa Monica Boulevard, sued Alle after the company’s accounting department discovered it paid Alle more than what its lease agreement stipulated.

Alle represented Medical Associates in the leasing of office space. For such services, leasing brokers commonly receive real estate commissions in the form of a small cut of the lease payments.

When Dr. Steven Silvers, a local podiatrist signed a lease in July of 2000, he had no idea it would cost Alle, his golfing buddy and broker, more than $2,000 in lost commissions.

Alle argued in small claims court that he and Joel Delman, a broker for Medical Associates, verbally agreed Alle would get 4 percent over 10 years, the term of the lease. But Delman argued that, perhaps unknown to Alle, Dr. Silvers — the tenant — finally signed a Medical Associates’ counter offer for 4 percent for the first five years and 2 percent for the second five years. Since Silvers was the principal and was Alle’s client, his signature was control-ling, Delman argued.

Alle said he never saw the counter offer his client signed. He asked Welch, the judge, to rule in his favor because Medical Associates had already paid two invoices totaling $11,480, which represented the 4 percent over 10 years commission structure.

“When you submit an invoice, you take great pains to add it up,” Alle said. “My understanding was 4 percent over 10 years and I wouldn’t have come up with those numbers if it wasn’t my understanding.”

However, several months after it paid two bills submitted by Alle, Medical Associates’ accounting department realized it had paid too much and alerted Delman, its broker, to the error.

Delman admits he didn’t look closely at Alle’s invoices. When he e-mailed Alle nearly a year later to ask that the overpayment be returned, Alle responded that he was entitled to the 4 percent commission to which the two brokers verbally agreed. He politely refused to refund Medical Associates and said Delman would have to take him to court to get the money.

“I made a mistake by not doing the computation,” Delman said. “I think John and his company get a windfall here because of my mistake.”

Judge Welch made her ruling based on Dr. Silvers’ signed counter offer, which called for the lower commission.

“Both of you appear to be credible witnesses,” she said. “But I have to go with what the document says.”

On Tuesday, Welch said while Alle provided his original proposal that pushed the 4 percent for the entire lease as evidence, the counter offer by Medical Associates was the one that held water.

“It appeared that the proposal provided by the plaintiff had Dr. Silvers’ signature,” she said. “If he hadn’t had that document it would have been more of a gray area.”

Despite Alle’s claims that 4 percent commission over 10 years is customary for a lease, Delman said his company would have never agreed to it.

“We would never pay 4 percent over 10 years,” Delman said. “He knows our company and we wouldn’t have paid that just because he was a nice guy. In this business there is nothing customary about commissions.”

Silvers, who had no idea there was behind-the-scenes bickering between the two brokers, said he didn’t pay attention to the commission stipulation in the lease for his 750-square-foot office that he moved into in December of 2000\. The commission dispute wouldn’t affect what he owed in lease payments.

“All I look at is what I pay per month,” he said. “John is a good broker and I felt like I got a good deal. It’s too bad he lost.”

Dr. Silvers added that rarely does the average business person know or care about the legal wranglings involved in brokerage deals.

“They are the big land barons and we are just the surfs on their land,” he quipped.

*Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on March 13, 2002.* [Read the original PDF.](https://s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com/smdp%5Fbackissues/031302.pdf?ref=smdp.com)