News About Properties

Dolphin Tower’s troubles stack up [South Florida]

Amid the discovery of still more concrete problems at Dolphin Tower, it appears that more money and more time will be needed to repair the damaged 15-story condo building.

Just as vexing to displaced residents, though, are signals that Great American Insurance Co., of Ohio, intends to deny a claim made by Dolphin Tower’s homeowners’ association that would pay for repairs.

Great American, which holds a policy on the 117-unit tower in downtown Sarasota, indicated in a letter to the association earlier this month that a policy claim would not be valid unless the building were to actually fall down.

“One of the defenses, ironically, is that coverage exists only where a building or component actually collapses, rather than being merely at risk of collapse,” said Alan Tannenbaum, a Sarasota attorney representing the association, referring to the letter.

Unit owners’ deaths raise many questions

Q:A senior-citizen couple purchased a unit in our 24-unit condominium in 2004 using a $213,000 mortgage and a very small down payment. In 2005, the husband died. In the period 2006 to 2008, the widow secured a total of $50,000 in home-equity loans (mortgages) on the unit. She died in May of this year. Sarasota County public records show about $170,000 in unpaid mortgages on a property worth about $130,000.

Her heirs came to the unit and cleaned it out to the bare walls. They appear to have walked away from this “underwater” mortgage situation. The July quarterly fee of $860 has not been paid. The bank may or may not even know of the owner’s death.

Do the heirs have any responsibility in this situation? Can they disclaim their inheritance? Should our condo board notify the bank? Should the board file a lien for unpaid fees? How many quarters of unpaid fees will the bank be responsible to pay in a foreclosure action? — A.O., Sarasota

Pinnacle’s real estate fallout

When Pinnacle Financial Partners got started 10 years ago, the bank’s executives, who had survived many a past real estate collapse, pledged to focus lending on business and industry — not real estate development.

Now, the bank is beset by loan problems linked to real estate and homebuilding plans gone awry across Middle Tennessee, quite the opposite of its original goals.

This much seems clear: A series of acquisitions of suburban banks in the past few years shifted a larger concentration of the bank’s loans into real estate development in fast-growing areas around Nashville, leading to questions about how smart its bank purchases truly were.

The fallout has been severe.

Developer’s Money Woes Evident in Bartow Foreclosure Sale [Central Florida]

An anchor building in downtown Bartow is going on the auction block Tuesday in a foreclosure sale, reflecting the financial nightmare plaguing Lakeland developer Jose Reynoso.

He paid $380,000 for the Berkowitz building at 415 E. Main St. in 2006, and spent thousands of dollars renovating it for offices and retail shops.

He bought four more downtown buildings soon after that and funneled more money into those renovations.

As recently as December, he bought two acres of vacant land along U.S. 17 south of Hooker Street in East Bartow for $195,000, and he signed leases with options to purchase two more downtown buildings.

Property tax appeals: South Florida property tax appeals on a blistering pace

The annual tax notices going out this month will bring a double whammy of bad news for many Florida property owners — lower values and higher taxes.

But a small minority will get a break by challenging the county’s value of their homes, businesses and land.

Tax appeals have been pouring into government offices throughout Florida, fueled by the real estate boom and crash and a highly profitable cottage industry of tax representatives. So far this year, Broward and Palm Beach counties have reduced property values by more than $2.5 billion as a result of appeals.

Lee County first in line for housing help [South Florida]

Three housing counseling agencies have been chosen to implement the pilot Florida Hardest-Hit program being offered in Lee County - $23 million is available to help about 1,200 homeowners.

County residents will have first crack at assistance because of the pilot program, according to a release from the Florida Housing Finance Corp., which is coordinating Hardest-Hit statewide.

Lee residents will be able to get help for 90 days starting Aug. 23 and the rest of the state will have access after that.

But homeowners having trouble with their mortgages don’t have to wait for the program to start, said Eddie Felton, executive director of the Fort Myers-based Home Ownership Resource Center, one of the three agencies providing help locally.