On May 29 Circuit Judge Chris France point blank asked the attorney representing the owners of the derelict motel on Old Dixie Highway if the owners intended to deposit the $250,000 security they agreed to three years ago in a deal with Flagler County government. The attorney said there is no intention to pay. Three weeks later France issued a ruling ordering the owners to pay. He gave them 10 days.
The deadline runs out Saturday. The owners appear still unwilling to pay. They have filed a motion through their attorney to stay the order, pending a July 11 hearing before France.
When the new owners, Manuel Gomez and David Shebiro, bought the motel three years ago, they agreed to a set of conditions with county government, including cleaning up the grounds, securing them, submitting site plans to the county and moving ahead with rebuilding the property into a viable hotel, which they were to call the Hotel Henry. The $250,000 was to be in escrow in case the owners did not live up to their end of the deal.
The new owners met some, but by no means all, of the conditions: after initial rounds of clean-ups and some work on the roof, the motel property has again fallen into another limbo, and no building plans have been approved, though a site plan was submitted in February. Nor was the money ever deposited. The owners’ attorney, Theodore D’Appuzzo, argued to France that the conditions were impossible to meet. The judge did not buy it. The order reflected his skepticism–and impatience with the attorney’s arguments.
The basis of the owners’ latest motion for a stay–their latest delay–is a parallel action the county had taken earlier this year in an attempt to demolish the building. The county’s Code Enforcement Department had determined that since the building was essentially abandoned, and since the owners were implementing one delay tactic after another, the building was a nuisance and should be demolished. The owners took the case before a magistrate who ruled in their favor earlier this month, just days after the hearing before France.
Sean McDermott, the special magistrate, agreed with the county that the motel as it stands is “an unsafe structure, a structure unfit for human occupancy, and a dangerous structure.” But the magistrate also found that the county had not made the case for its demolition. Not yet.
Based on that order, the owners are now asking for a stay of France’s order, even though the two actions are not directly related, and Frances’s order had, in fact, implicitly accepted the owners’ argument that they could still rehabilitate the building: that’s why he ordered that the deposit be paid.
To the owners, the magistrate’s findings “go expressly to the heart of the allegations of this litigation.” They don;t say how, and further argue in what amounts to a sleight of sophistry that the county had not actually sought an injunction requiring the payment of the deposit, only that it had sought a ruling on the breach of contract related to the non-payment of the deposit–which, in effect, amounts to the same thing: the deposit had not been paid. The county wanted it paid up.
The judge will hear the owners’ motion at 8:30 a.m. July 11.
Pogo says
@Memories
Pogo once said:
@Fresh floriduh produce
According to corporationwiki, “2251 S Old Dixie Hwy LLC filed as a Florida Limited Liability in the State of Florida on Tuesday, May 4, 2021 and is less than one month old, according to public records filed with Florida Department of State.”
Then brer Shebeiro signs an agreement on the 13th of May; and the checks roll in on the 24th. By Jove, good show.
Again, according to corporationwiki, “Known Addresses for 2251 S Old Dixie Hwy LLC” are, “12550 Biscayne Blvd North Miami, FL 33181” According to the intertubes, corporationwiki, and Google, 12550 Biscayne Blvd North Miami, FL 33181 is a nine story office building which hosts, or has hosted, 687 floriduh corporations. Well, okay then – a popular place.
And the number of the “silent partners”? God only knows.
“Landlords grow rich in their sleep.”
— John Stuart Mill
https://flaglerlive.com/old-dixie-motel/#gsc.tab=0
FYI
https://www.corporationwiki.com/
Land of no turn signals says says
Plus attorney’s fee’s and interest.
c says
Is this a Trump company?
Jane Gentile-Youd says
I asked Hadeed..McKinnon and Moylan 2 days ago to OBJECT to any delay. I knew this was coming because the owner of the gas station is out of town until next whom they are trying to pay to
buy water easement to try to save their corrupt asses. I hope judge says NO!
Skibum says
This latest delay tactic should receive a clear and resounding NO! from the judge, who already appeared to be at the end of his patience with these con men who have never once lived up to their obligations. The next order then should be permission granting the county’s request to start demolition on the abandoned and derelict property if the owners do not show proof that they have deposited the long past due #250,000 they have owed the county for three long years. I’m crossing my fingers the judge will continue to do the right thing and not reward the con artist owners for their repeated lies and delay tactics.