For the past year, CKO Real Estate has been in the spotlight with allegations of financial mismanagement, building code violations, lawsuits and neglected tenants who lived in many of its 34 properties in Chicago.
As CKO Real Estate was blamed for many problems, another group went unscathed and continued to operate as business as usual behind closed doors: the investors.
Sources tell the Crusader they are affluent and many of them don’t live in South Side neighborhoods where they own many apartment buildings.
It’s a group that tenants will never see. But as tenants continue to deal with unaddressed problems, more and more of them are viewing the investors as the root of their problems. As owners of the buildings that CKO Real Estate managed, the investors had the power to intervene as tenants allegedly lived in slums, but they didn’t because they claim they didn’t know what CKO Real Estate was doing until it was too late. But tenants aren’t buying that.
Investors closed CKO Real Estate in February. But just as tenants in South Shore struggled to get their lives back together, the Realtors have reemerged like Jason on “Friday the 13th.”
The Crusader has learned that CKO Real Estate is back. While tenants are haunted by the memories of living in substandard housing, investors, whom many tenants have never seen or spoken to, operate out of the public view with few to no answers. of the public view with few to no answers. They operate behind numerous LLC’s or shell companies.
This week, city officials condemned an apartment building at 6954 S. Paxton in South Shore that was once managed by CKO Real Estate.
And in recent weeks, the Crusader has obtained text messages and screenshots that show CKO Real Estate asking tenants to pay their rent through a new payment portal, which the firm has set up.
Another tenant emailed the Crusader this week to report that CKO Real Estate informed her that they are the new property manager of her building. The tenant did know about CKO Real Estate until the tenant read several Crusader articles after a Google search.
The Crusader is not releasing any details of those messages to protect the tenants, who can be easily identified by CKO Real Estate by the information they provided to the newspaper.
The latest development has sparked anger and doubt toward the investors who permanently closed CKO Real Estate in February after a fire ripped through one of the firm’s apartment buildings in South Shore. Now, many tenants are concerned that CKO Real Estate is still in business, while most investors remain unknown and inaccessible.
While many employees and vendors went weeks and months without getting paid, those same investors allege CKO Real Estate principal Chikoo Patel took nearly $4 million from the firm by steering rent payments from the firm’s residential and commercial properties to his personal bank account.
But the blame has now shifted to the investors who sources say they cannot locate Patel to hold him accountable for his actions. After it was discovered what Patel allegedly had done, the investors claimed they did not know about Patel’s alleged “Ponzi scheme.”
But many tenants who spoke to the Crusader anonymously questioned how investors could not know about such actions that dramatically impacted their bottom line and the firm’s ability to pay its employees and vendors, while not funding badly needed repairs to neglected apartment buildings.
And there are also questions as to why the investors didn’t immediately take action when Patel was still working in their building in the West Loop when they closed CKO Real Estate because of his alleged “Ponzi Scheme.”
Days before CKO Real Estate was closed, a Crusader journalist, along with a photographer, interviewed Patel at the firm’s former office at 1133 W. Van Buren St.
When the Crusader journalist entered the office lobby, four men that included Property Manager Jerome Faulkner were having a meeting at a glass-enclosed room to the right. One came out and walked up a flight of steps to get Patel after he was requested for an interview for this story.
Patel came down and spoke to the Crusader during a 10-minute interview.
Faulkner now works directly for those investors, but the in-person interview with Patel shows the investors missed the opportunity when they had access to him.
Many tenants are aware that Patel’s name is not only tied to CKO Real Estate, but he is also the registered agent for Jackson Highlands Properties, LLC.
And tenants have more questions for investors. Why hasn’t anyone filed a lawsuit against Patel after the millions he allegedly stole from them? And why hasn’t a “Cease and Desist” order been given to stop him and CKO Real Estate from operating and collecting rent from tenants. Perhaps most important, why isn’t Patel in jail?
Tenants believe investors are just as guilty as Patel for not turning him in and protecting an alleged criminal.
Sources told the Crusader that investors didn’t want to do anything to Patel out of concern that he might expose other affluent investors of wrongdoing in a real estate industry that’s rife with competition and greed. Some tenants say they also distrust the investors as they “hide” from the public without being transparent or held accountable. And without bringing Patel to justice, tenants say the investors are contributing to their problems rather than solving them. Tenants say they have no one whom they could trust and talk with to deal with what CKO Real Estate left behind.
Sources told the Crusader that an investor spoke at a private meeting the tenants had with city officials on April 10. Details of that meeting were not disclosed. Since investors closed CKO Real Estate in February, tenants’ frustrations and distrust toward the investors have worsened. Under PIP Property Management and Taylor Realty, two property management firms that the investors hired to manage its apartments buildings, tenants continue to experience problems.
Dan (who couldn’t be fully identified) told the Crusader that to investors, PIP was considered a “reputable firm” amid concerns that CKO Real Estate will still operate under a new name.
The Crusader has learned that PIP Property Management was getting directives from the previous firm, CKO Real Estate, as the former was trying to collect back rent that tenants promised would be waived by Faulkner because of the alleged damage CKO Real Estate had done.
The Crusader received several text messages that reportedly showed that PIP Property Management tried to collect thousands of dollars in back rent from tenants who withheld their payments because they were without heat and water.
Last month, sources told investors they dropped PIP Property Management, accusing the firm of overpricing the cost of repairs to badly neglected apartment buildings.
Halsted Taylor Realty now manages all of the properties, including the 27 buildings in South Shore. But sources told the Crusader that Halsted Taylor Realty is a much smaller firm that’s not equipped to handle the large number of properties, which they have to maintain and collect rent from tenants.
In February, some tenants balked at paying rent to Taylor Realty when the new firm asked tenants in a suspicious flyer to pay their rent with a money order without introducing themselves.
Back to Patel.
When he and CKO Real Estate finally moved out of the building, the Crusader received a call from someone named Dan. He told the paper that Patel no longer worked there, and a large sign was placed on the building window after the Crusader published a photo of the building that Dan said drew visits to the building by people looking for Patel.
The sign in the building’s window included Patel’s phone number and email address. The sign also reportedly included Patel’s wife’s name and phone number.
The Crusader left voicemails and emails for Patel, asking for an update on CKO Real Estate employees who left or were terminated by the firm after going without pay for weeks.
But in an article in The Triibe, a Black-owned digital news outlet, Patel said he had not been associated with the South Shore buildings for “some months.” That same article said Patel “could not comment on the conditions of the properties.”
As the Crusader reported in a previous story, in 2023 Patel bought two buildings on Paxton Avenue in South Shore. One of those buildings at 6733 S. Paxton was condemned by the city in February before it caught fire. The other building at 6715 S. Paxton is in foreclosure, city officials said.
Under CKO Real Estate, many tenants were forced to live without heat, water and even electricity. Some tenants lived with collapsed ceilings and severe sewage problems in their apartments. Many of the buildings had code violations. City inspectors at one property stopped workers from gutting and rehabbing a building because they did not have a city permit.
Updated on April 26, 2025, to correct the names of the real estate companies.