UNFINISHED BUSINESS: NC realtor loses license to sell following QCN investigation

LINCOLN COUNTY, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Joy Cotto was nowhere to be found inside the large second-floor conference room of the North Carolina Real Estate Commission office. Her name was on a list of settlement deals of real estate agents under investigation by the state.

The commission received its first complaint against Cotto back in May 2023 from a fellow real estate broker in Gaston County.

“Joy is selling lots and new construction homes with her husband acting as the GC (general contractor), but he is not a general contractor,” Frankie Gonzalez, Jr. wrote in a complaint dated May 8, 2023.

“The new construction homes do not progress, her communication is terrible, and Mario Cotto, her husband, is non-communicative,” Gonzalez alleged.

Turns out, as the old saying goes, Gonzalez was a canary in the coal mine.

During our ‘Unfinished Business’ investigation, we heard from two dozen homeowners in Lincoln and Mecklenburg Counties with the same exact story. In Lincoln County, we found two housing developments where Joy Cotto sold lots with unfinished, rotting houses her husband had been paid deposits on, but never finished.

Cotto was a real estate agent with Exp Realty, working under a Broker In Charge named Philip Black at the time of the first complaint. Black continued supervising Cotto even after Labelle’s complaint. Black had also fielded information requests from the NCREC seeking financial records from Exp related to Joy Cotto.

Black terminated Joy Cotto on June 20, 2024 – one day after Queen City News Chief Investigator Jody Barr informed Black in an email that he’s planning to travel to Black’s office to conduct an interview with him concerning multiple allegations against Cotto. Black had ignored multiple attempts by QCN to reach him to discuss the Cotto allegations.

On June 20, 2024, Black finally responded to Barr, writing, “I am not at liberty to discuss this matter other than to say that Ms. Cotto is no longer affiliated with our firm.”

We again asked Black and Exp realty for comment following the May 2025 NCREC commission meeting, where Joy Cotto asked the commission to accept a two-year license suspension in exchange for dismissing the investigations into all allegations of misconduct against her.

The NCREC received more complaints in 2024. Lisa Labelle was one of those complainants.

Labelle bought a lot on Furnace Road Extension near Lincolnton from Joy and Mario Cotto. She signed a contract for Mario to build a custom home on the lot. Labelle wired Mario $158,000 to purchase the lot and an existing foundation sitting on the lot.

Labelle said that in the months between purchasing the lot until she fired Mario Cotto in February 2024, contractors spent two days framing the home. When QCN visited the lot months later, two partial walls on one corner of the garage were standing.

A pile of discolored two-by-fours was stacked on the ground.

Labelle said Mario Cotto took a $168,000 bank draw not long after she signed the contract with him. By the time she fired him, Labelle’s lot showed no signs of any major work performed there.

Labelle first filed an ethics complaint with Canopy Realtor Association in Charlotte, accusing Joy Cotto of hiding the fact that her husband’s Distinctive Homes and Development Group had not completed a single home before Labelle contracted with the company to build hers.

“You were going to be the first,” Joy Cotto told Labelle during the April 2024 Canopy ethics hearing.

Canopy’s ethics panel found Joy Cotto in violation of the realtors’ ethics code following a hearing in May 2024. “Failure to disclose these significant delays in construction has been determined to be a violation of Article 2 of the Code of Ethics,” the panel wrote in a decision.

Canopy ordered Cotto to pay a $3,000 fine and ordered her to take a four-hour ethics course within 30 days. Cotto paid the fine and took the course, but it was too late to save her from the NCREC investigation.

During the May 2025 NCREC meeting, the commission attorney laid out what the investigation found in its probe of the Cottos: “The complaining witnesses allege that Cotto was aware that her husband was not completing the construction of the lots that they had purchased. But she continued to list the lots and sell them without any explanation or notification that there were issues with the construction,” NCREC Asst. Dir. Regulatory Affairs Charlie Moody told the commission.

“Cotto served in a similar role for her previous husband, and she had done that for a long period of time. So, we would present to you a case where we say that she should have known that these lots were not – these homes were not going to be built,” Moody said.

“Work was started on some, but it was just nothing – I think there was one spec home and there was one completed project, but the others were just slow and you know, framing put up, but it is a complete failure,” Moody told the commission.

Queen City News obtained a copy of the 4,941-page NCREC investigative file on the Joy Cotto investigation. The file also contained all records from Cotto’s commission file, including her initial application to become a licensed realtor in North Carolina.

The records show Cotto was first licensed in 1988 as Joy Frye, then later changed her name to Joy Clark following a marriage. She then became Joy Cotto in November 2018, following her marriage to Mario Cotto.

The NCREC file shows no disciplinary action against Joy Cotto, but it does show a 1983 conviction of welfare fraud out of Catawba County. The sentencing in the case shows Cotto pleaded guilty and the judge sentenced her to 12 months in state prison, but suspended the jail time and ordered her to pay the government $800 in restitution.

Cotto has no other criminal charge reported on her NCREC record since.

The NCREC attorney told the commission during the May 2025 hearing that the Regulatory Affairs unit negotiated a settlement with Joy Cotto, which included a 24-month surrender of her realtor license in exchange for the commission dismissing every other allegation of misconduct against her.

The deal would allow Cotto to surrender her license without admitting to a single allegation.

The commission unanimously voted to accept Cotto’s surrender. Cotto can reapply for her realtor license on May 21, 2027, and will have to start over from scratch as though she were never licensed.

“Do you think that was justice for what you went through?” Barr asked Labelle during a June 2025 interview, “From the perspective that no one else can become a victim, I think it is a victory. However, two years’ suspension for the amount of evidence that was provided, I think it really warranted a complete – her license being revoked and her not being able to ever sell real estate in North Carolina again,” Labelle said.

“So I am pleased. I feel like myself and the other individuals that complained against Joy to the commission, I am satisfied that for now, there can be no other victims,” Labelle told QCN.

Days after our ‘Unfinished Business’ investigation aired in June 2024, the North Carolina Licensing Board for General Contractors sought an injunction against Mario Cotto’s Lion Real Estate Group and and his ex-general contractor, Gerome Blackmon’s DeNovo Homes where Blackmon is the registered agent and a managing member, according to the NCLBGC’s March 2024 complaint.

READ: NC LICENSING BOARD FOR GENERAL CONTRACTORS COMPLAINT:

The board alleged that Mario Cotto and Gerome Blackmon “listed themselves as the ‘Contractor’ with Blackmon’s license number on home builds in Mecklenburg and Lincoln counties.

“Blackmon did not manage, superintend, or oversee” the construction of the homes, according to the board complaint.

“Defendants managed and supervised the referenced projects entirely without the involvement of Blackmon or any licensed general contractor,” according to the complaint. “Defendants should be enjoined from the practice of general contracting in the State of North Carolina until such time, if ever, that Defendants become properly licensed,” Board Attorney A. Grant Simpkins wrote in the March 2024 complaint.

READ: GEROME BLACKMON’S DENOVO HOMES SETTLEMENT:

On July 22, 2024, Gerome Blackmon, who holds a valid General Contractor’s license in his name, and his DeNovo Homes entered into a consent judgment in Wake County. The judgment shows DeNovo Homes was never issued a general contractor license to practice general contracting in North Carolina.

DeNovo and The Lion Real Estate Group used Blackmon’s GC license number on contracts, but neither DeNovo nor Lion held a GC license, according to the judgment. DeNovo “has engaged in the practice of general contracting in North Carolina without first obtaining a license from the Board,” the judgment stated.

READ: MARIO COTTO’S LION REAL ESTATE GROUP DEFAULT JUDGMENT:

The July 2024 order bans DeNovo from performing general contracting work in North Carolina until the company is properly licensed. If DeNovo violates the order, the company’s principals are subject to being held in contempt of the court, “including the imposition of fines and/or imprisonment.”

Mario Cotto’s Lion Real Estate Group suffered the same fate as DeNovo Homes on Sept. 20, 2024, when a judge handed down a default judgment against the company for performing contracting work without a license.

The order does not impact any of Cotto or Blackmon’s other companies.