Catskills - Sullivan County - Ulster County Real Estate -- Catskill Farms Journal

We just had two successful days of legal discovery (which the main takeaway is Jared Covit thinks I'm mean), and I'm just about heading to Italy for better part of a month, so I'm not going to harp on this one thing as we are crushing it from a business perspective. but here's the letter I submitted to the NY Bar concerning the actions of Martin Shell.

Charles Petersheim
2458 State Route 209
Wurtsboro, NY 12790
917-838-5342

4/20/2026

Attorney Grievance Committee
Third Judicial Department
286 Washington Avenue Extension, Suite 200
Albany, New York 12203

Re: Complaint Against Martin Shell, Esq.
The Shell Law Firm, PLLC

Dear Members of the Committee:

I write to file a complaint regarding the conduct of Martin Shell, Esq., counsel for the plaintiffs in an ongoing civil matter in which I am a defendant.

The conduct at issue occurred during a scheduled site inspection of the subject property located at 174 Rivka Road, Saugerties, New York. The inspection took place on March 30, 2026.

During the inspection, Mr. Shell engaged in behavior that I believe was unprofessional and inconsistent with the standards of conduct expected of attorneys in New York. Specifically:

• Mr. Shell raised his voice and addressed me in an aggressive and confrontational manner on multiple occasions.
• He attempted to direct and control my actions during the inspection, issuing instructions in a manner that was inappropriate for opposing counsel.
• His conduct disrupted the orderly process of the inspection and created a tense and adversarial environment beyond what is typical for such proceedings.
• Mr. Shell produced a camera and began recording in a manner that I experienced as aggressive and intrusive. This recording was not disclosed or agreed upon in advance and was conducted in close proximity in a way that appeared intended to provoke or intimidate rather than neutrally document the inspection.
• His aggressive actions only were tempered after several warnings from my counsel.

It’s also appears that Mr Shell and Mr Covit (the homeowner) set up a listening devices at the exterior of the home to eavesdrop on our privileged and private conversations.  Since I was using my phone to videotape the condition of the home, I captured Attorney Shell speaking into thin air ‘Jared, can you open the front door’? while Jared Covit is inside the home far from our location.  The door then opens.

The purpose of the site inspection was to facilitate discovery in a professional and cooperative manner. Instead, the conduct described above interfered with that objective.

Mr Shell may counter his performance was in appropriate response to me introducing him to my fellow inspectees as the 'lawyer who sued us for fraud' (cause of action dismissed), which was just stating the facts that he himself created.  I believe Mr. Shell’s behavior falls below the standards of civility and professionalism required of attorneys, including the obligation to refrain from conduct that is disruptive, harassing, or prejudicial to the administration of justice.

I respectfully request that the Committee review this matter and determine whether further inquiry or action is warranted, especially the potential eavesdropping of client-attorney conversations.

I am available to provide additional information, including a more detailed account of the incident, the identities of other individuals present, and any supporting documentation.

Thank you for your time and attention to this matter.  There were four witnesses to this, including another member of the bar.

Respectfully,

Charles Petersheim

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What Claude.ai says about the situation -

If this happened, it is a serious violation:

From a legal standpoint, attorney-client privilege and work product doctrine protect your private conversations during that inspection. If opposing counsel actively participated in or directed the recording of those conversations, that is potentially one of the most serious ethical violations an attorney can commit. It could constitute:

• Eavesdropping — a criminal offense under New York Penal Law §250.05, which makes it illegal to unlawfully engage in wiretapping or mechanical overhearing of a conversation
• Violation of attorney-client privilege — intentionally intercepting privileged communications is sanctionable conduct
• Bar ethics violations — under New York Rules of Professional Conduct, Rule 8.4, attorneys are prohibited from engaging in conduct involving dishonesty, fraud, deceit, or misrepresentation
• Potential obstruction — depending on what they did with the information

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The Jared Covit, Lauren Rich, Martin Shell Show is Back in Town.

Some of you long time readers might remember the homeowners of Ranch 51 in Saugerties, that great house with a stream, views abutting a lovely field in the rear of the property at the far end of a 16 home project we did in 2020-2022, those perfectly nasty folks who after we delivered a home to in a world-wide pandemic sued us for deceptive business practices, tried to pierce the corporate veil to sue me personally, breach of contract and bunch of other nonsense that an Ulster County court unceromoniously threw out and dismissed.  Unless you know a little about the law, or run a business that gets up in the morning and works hard all day for decades, it’s hard to overstate the offensiveness of these causes of actions these jerks brought.

Jared Covit also created a shadow Catskill Farms instagram account which looked friendly and then turned nasty if you liked or followed, and used his digital prowess to seemingly auto-contact a lot of my Catskill Farms followers, many who are my friends and one who got caught up in this was my son Lucas since Lucas is an active follower of mine on Insta. Now Covit doesn't have a kid, so he can't really fathom the rage a situation like that can feel like to a parent. He took it down after he was rightfully shown the potential liability he was creating for he and his apparently long-suffering wife Lauren (we will learn how long-suffering tomorrow) with his business interference tactics.  One of the few smart things he’s done in this regard.

So Jared Covit and Lauren Rich have a few issues with their home, which is true for every single home we’ve ever built, and as we tried to work through them, the level of obsession became frightening - during and after the build.  Hundreds upon hundreds of emails.  Texts.   Followups.  Add ons.  Repeat.  Remedy one thing, four more emails arrived in our inbox.  And then followups to the new emails.   Really, a sickness the level of obsession. 

So anyway, this was years ago, and his home is perfectly fine, performing in a fashion I hope all our homes perform - dependable, safe, appreciating in value, good looking, low maintenance.

But this fucking guy Jared Covit wants his pound of flesh so the one legal cause of action that withstood immediate dismissal was about a warranty claim about siding, and that wasn’t dismissed not because its valid, but because the judge wanted to learn more about it because it was a dispute on the facts, whereas on the 4, 5, 6 causes of action that were dismissed were just wrongly pled and really just a tool of harassment.

So here we are years later and Jared Covit won’t let it go even though there have been so many off ramp opportunities I’ve lost count, so today I had to sit for a deposition discussing among many things, if I’ve read and committed to memory and had team meetings about a 110 page technical manual about how to install Hardy Plank siding.  His attorney Martin Shell, attorney at law, who showed up an hour late since I guess he doesn’t know that there is traffic getting out of the city, put on a ridiculous performance of ill-tempered, easily-provoked amateurness that only he and his seemingly delusional client could think was effective. It should be self-evident, by the very nature of a blog, that these statements are my opinions derived directly from watching him in action.

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Or as ChatGPT says - Yes—blogs are personal in tone and perspective.They’re essentially your voice, your take, your narrative—more like a journal or commentary than formal writing.

Tomorrow, Jared Covit and his wife Lauren Rich have to sit for their depositions where we will closely evaluate their claims, approaches, theories and opinions about a lot of different things. I don't want to spoil it tonight, but expect a good recap tomorrow or over the weekend.

One of the off ramps I offered in an attempt to lower the temperature was to take down four funny blog posts from a year ago after all most of his legal causes of action were dismissed, highlighting Martin Shell’s apparent lack of legal acumen and Jared Covit’s insane obsessiveness (in my opinion) as well as all the time he has on his hands and well as the perverse need to stain his and his wife's upstate life with this exercise.  

Well, those posts Google loved, as I’m sure Google will love this one, since Google loves this blog.  Why does Google love this blog? - because it’s pertinent, it’s informed, it’s regularly updated and I’ve been keeping it for the better part of 2 decades. So I’m going to republish them and then watch to see if anything has changed with our authority with the world's smartest algorithm.  Since Jared Covit doesn’t have much of an internet presence, my blog posts quickly - and I mean quickly - became the dominant search return on his name. Forever. What do they say? FAFO?

When I intimated that I’m going to repost those and create new ones tracking this new uptick in energy with this site, Martin Shell once again lost his cool saying ‘I’m going to the judge’, “I’m going to do this”, “I’m going to tell my mom”.  I’m just like ‘free speech bro, free speech.  Let it ring my Brother.” Martin Shell also wasn't that happy to learn I filed a ethics complaint against him for his actions towards me at a site inspection, which can actually be a big deal depending how it gets viewed by the powers that be. I don't have a copy of it handy but I'll post it when I can. It's a great rebuttal to his dismissed causes of actions against me, personally- to make one against him. Only mine has legs and his didn't.

Anyways, it’s weird when $100,000 or $200,000 is just a business expense, one that is reduced in half because of NY and Fed taxes on big earners.  The time to compromise with these pricks is over - this will go all the way now.  Stay tuned. Amazingly, I didn't get a parking ticket in Kingston today.

And the lame cleanup Chatgpt version:

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The Jared Covit, Lauren Rich, Martin Shell Show Is Back in Town

Some longtime readers might remember the homeowners of Ranch 51 in Saugerties — a house we built between 2020–2022 at the end of a 16-home project. After delivery during the pandemic, disputes arose and litigation followed, including claims for deceptive business practices, attempts to pierce the corporate veil, breach of contract, and other allegations. Many of those claims were ultimately dismissed by an Ulster County court.

If you’ve never run a business for decades, it’s hard to appreciate how disruptive and frustrating litigation like that can be, particularly when you believe the claims are unfounded.

Kingston – Scene of the Deposition

During that period, there were also some unusual online dynamics involving social media accounts that, from our perspective, appeared connected to the situation and interacted with our audience in ways we found concerning. Those issues were addressed at the time and eventually stopped.

Covit and Rich have raised various issues with their home — which, to be fair, is not unusual. Every home has punch list items and follow-ups. What made this situation different, in our experience, was the volume and persistence of communications during and after construction — extensive emails, texts, and follow-ups as we worked through items.

That process became difficult to manage at times.

Where Things Stand Now

Years later, the home is performing as intended — safe, functional, and consistent with what we aim to deliver.

At this stage, the remaining legal dispute centers largely on a warranty-related issue involving siding. That claim was not dismissed early because it involves factual questions that the court determined should be explored further.

Despite multiple opportunities to resolve things along the way, the matter has continued, and today included a deposition covering, among other things, technical installation standards and documentation.

Attorney Martin Shell, representing the plaintiffs, participated in the deposition. As is often the case in litigation, there were moments of tension and disagreement about approach and conduct during the proceeding.

What’s Next

Tomorrow, Covit and Rich are scheduled for their depositions, where their claims, positions, and supporting facts will be examined in detail. I’ll share a recap once that process unfolds.

At one point, I offered to remove prior blog posts written after earlier dismissals as part of an effort to de-escalate things. Those posts discussed my perspective on the dispute and the litigation process. Ultimately, that proposal did not lead to a resolution.

For those curious about how content performs online — yes, this blog has been around for nearly two decades, and it tends to rank well because it’s consistent, specific, and regularly updated.

So as this situation evolves, I’ll continue documenting it here.

Stay tuned.

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I was just thinking about the development differences of me and my son, as I was reading about retiring in the South Of France (dream not reality) and was thinking about a girl I met on Martha’s Vineyard who I exchanged letters with, and I would wait for those letters, day after day, walking to the mailbox at lunch of the farm in Edgartown on Martha’s Vineyard.  I remember at the height of our correspondence in the summer of ‘91, where my words tumbled onto the page, into an envelope, off to her mother’s home in Ohio.

She was the scion of a large mid-west banking family, attending Brown, and farming, like me, in the summers on the blue-blood enclave.  I would send those letters, and she would return hers, and the turnaround was weeks, with no expectation or knowledge of when a letter might drop.  Just a daily anticipation and then the infrequent arrival of a letter, which slowly faded to black as one of the writers lost the passion of the correspondence. This happened on Morning Glory Farm.

The dopamine drip of waiting on a letter is a lot different than opening your phone and sending a text or receiving a text, a notification, etc…  And I got to wondering on this Friday morning how that changes our wiring - learning to wait versus getting quick feedback.  In my business at least, and I think life in general, there is a benefit to having a muscle trained that knows how to wait, can navigate the impulses of ‘now’, is comfortable in the vast unknown.

Even for those of us raised in the pre-tech era, we have been pretty much re-conditioned to need immediacy and it takes a concerted effort to turn the devices off, power down go tech-dark, even for a few hours in the evening.

But the waiting on a letter that you don’t even know if it was ever sent, walking to the mailbox where you have that 2 second anticipation as you open the mailbox door before most times being disappointed, that’s a unique type of waiting and seeing.  I guess the point is a little bit - we used to have a lot more low-simmering disappointment woven into each moment of each day, when things weren’t at our fingertips, we did not live in the malleable and marginally phony online instagram world.

But even today, I remember those walks to the mailbox with a mixture of memory and shame for the unrequited nature of that one-sided letter-oriented romance with a girl way out of my league, which faded on its own timeline.

We are getting a lot of construction done.  But now it’s wet, and the sun isn’t shining, so it stays wet and saturated.  We need a week of sunshine.  But nevertheless, progress is everywhere.

It will be a big year of construction productivity.  I don’t know about construction profits yet; that we will have to wait and see, but if things come together, if the sales market rewards us for the risks we are taking, then it shall be a banner year.

Even if not a banner year, with the deals we have in place at this early juncture in the year, it will be a manageable busy year, and that's the worst case scenario.  I’m bringing $4m of new homes for sale to the market so there better be some buyers out there!  I’ve cashed out my stock market non-retirement accounts and brought this money back into the business so I can cushion my risks without borrowing at the cost of $8k-$12k a month.  Even though my business and my personal finances are separate, they all funnel to my personal net worth/wealth bottomline, so a dollar saved in interest wherever is a dollar more in my pocket.  With the world acting crazy, I doubt my market returns will be larger and expected to exceed my interest costs of 7+%. 

I remember sitting in the Starbucks in New Paltz in 2015 just reading the business pages of some newspaper and some whipper snapper University kid interrupts me and tells me to ‘buy crypto’.  I brushed him off of course, and of course he was right.  I could have been an early adopter even if I wasn’t ‘all in’.  The one caveat there would be there would be zero chance I didn’t lose or misplace my codes, passwords and security strings, causing imaginable grief at the locked up and untouchable bitcoin appreciation.

I was also at the table when AI was first being discussed mainstream with a girlfriend who worked at a startup in 2022

And I was sitting in the perfect seat for both cell phones and the internet in 1994-2002, as well as the Iphone, etc…

I think going forward I will be a little more open to these conversations I hear, and perhaps make small investments and let them sit and grow or fail.  You don’t have to be a believer and always right about these things to hedge your skeptical nature and make small bets on the future.

I got my wish - a cold but dry week that allowed a lot of progress.

First bicycle ride of the year with gear head from local bike store Xavier.

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The problem with being impatient about winter ending is then you have March, which is a most unfriendly month of teaser nice days, then smack in the face cold, windy wet days.  Whenever it dries out just enough to start getting optimistic about progress, bam, it’s gone.  And since the sun doesn’t shine and it remains Ireland damp, it stays wet, damp and untraversable for a while.  Last night, with the worst possible timing, a Sunday night before the work week, a heavy rain started around 7pm and lasted till 9am this morning.

I’m an AI user, Chatgpt, though the smart set was making me feel guilty for using Chat and not Claude, or something less dominant in the marketplace - like Claude is the new Apple and Chat is Microsoft - unhip, uncool, AI for Facebook users.  That’s baloney - it’s a great product and judging by simple login issues with Claude, the elite tastemakers of AI can kiss my ass.

The world is getting interesting, and the impact of gas prices will mean something to someone, though what it is is hard to know for certain.  Since I’m getting busy and needed some cash flow/equity investment cushion, I cashed out of a sizable equity (non-retirement) position to infuse into the business for the next wash rinse repeat investment in building homes.  I’m thinking this year is shaping up to be a lot more sneaky vibrant than I expected, and to be honest, that’s been true each year for a few years, though last year I wasn’t in a position to take advantage of it.

We’ve gone from Zero to 60 in a few months flat and are eager to get a move on it, as are a lot of our subs and vendors, who have been idling over the winter not at a full stop of course but at less than optimal speed, stressing cash flows with fixed costs and reduced revenues, and especially tricky as you ramp back up.  Our big inflows will probably be 3rd and 4th quarter, and that foresight insight is why I moved some money back into the business - to be safe, to not pay the bank interest more than we have to, and to have some dry powder for some opportunities. 

Costa Rica is always a prominent choice in ex-pat snowbird living, but Panama is actually the real sleeper of value, from what I’ve been reading.

I just discovered about car dealership client waiting rooms what I already know about airplanes - do not arrive without headphones.  Chitchat, beeping and pinging of cell phones, too loud piped in music, an odd TV on somewhere, and the real trigger, someone listening to their phone on speaker phone. 

I’m actually doing an interesting task these days - going through my phone and deleting old contacts - who knows what comes next, adding last names to the 14 Johns, Matts, and Erics that make life harder than it should be.

Free chair if anyone is looking.

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