Lehmans’ Dick Fuld off-loads a home

Dick Fuld, the disgraced former chief executive of Lehman Brothers, has sold his $14m Florida home to his wife for just one hundred bucks. Fuld, nicknamed "The Gorilla" for his combative negotiation technique, made the property switch a few weeks after Lehmans collapsed last year, an event that triggered the worst financial panic since the Great Depression and resulted in investors losing billions. He personally took a hit of $1bn.

The amount paid by Kathleen Fuld for the five-bedroom property was the absolute minimum allowed by Florida law. The 3.3-acre property on Jupiter Island – neighbours include Tiger Woods and Celine Dion - is one of five luxury homes owned by the Fulds, who spend most of their time at their eight-bedroom mansion in Greenwich, Connecticut.

The transaction is being seen as an attempt to avoid having to sell the home in advance of an onslaught of compensation lawsuits against him from the back’s creditors. Eric Ruff, a Florida attorney told the New York Times the transfer was "the oldest trick in the book" .... "It's common when you hear the feet of your creditor approaching to divest yourself." But Ruff warned that the sale could be deemed fraudulent if Kathleen Fuld is determined to have not paid enough for the property.

Jeffrey Zane, a Palm Beach attorney, said the transfer of the house was necessary because Fuld, as a non-resident of Florida, was not safeguarded by the state's homestead property laws that can protect a family home from creditors.

Following the collapse of Lehmans, which was a prime mover in the sub-prime mortgage market, Fuld became the de facto face of Wall Street greed. And he did not endear himself when he turned in a belligerent performance before Congress in October. At the hearing, Fuld was branded a "villain" for amassing a sprawling property empire and a modern art collection – parts of which the Fulds off-loaded in November, including three Willem de Koonings worth £20m.

When one of his congressional inquisitors said he believed Fuld had taken home half a billion dollars in pay and bonuses during the previous decade, Fuld said the figure was not right but could not provide another. He eventually agreed that it was something close to $300m. ·