A second former Properties of The Villages representative has agreed to a settlement with her former boss.
Kelly Shipes in 2013 joined Properties of The Villages. After fellow Properties of The Villages representatives Christopher Day and Jason Kranz abruptly left in December 2019 to form KD Premier Realty, Shipes was among a small group of sales representatives who elected to follow them. The move cost Shipes, a former college volleyball standout, her coaching position with The Villages Charter School. She was also dismissed from the board of the Buffalo Stampeders, the organization that boosts sports programs at the school.
According to the agreement filed Monday in U.S. District Court, Shipes will not be paying attorneys’ fees to Properties of The Villages, something her fellow defendant, Villager Cynthia Hughes, agreed to do last week. Hughes, also a Properties of The Villages representative who defected to KD Premier Realty, agreed to pay $5,000 in attorneys’ to her former employer. Both women have agreed to drop their counterclaims against The Villages.
Shipes will be barred from working in real estate in The Villages for 18 months, with the exception of closing on a house at 1371 Piney Woods Path in the Village Dunedin.
Shipes’ settlement comes as a trial is taking place this week in federal court in Tampa in which Day, Kranz and other former Properties of The Villages representatives have been named as defendants.
