By Margaret Cashill

June 18, 2014

Claims related to the shuttered Colony Beach & Tennis Resort will be the subject of an auction in federal court in Tampa on Thursday. Colony Beach & Tennis Club Ltd., the partnership that was the former operator of the resort, is attempting to auction claims it has against the Colony Beach & Tennis Club Association Inc., a nonprofit corporation representing condominium unit owners at the property, according to Jeff Warren, the lawyer representing the unit owners.  Read more:

A Beaufort County tow truck driver who shot a man dead during an argument over a parking boot almost four years ago was sentenced to 26 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter Thursday.  Preston Oates, 30, had been charged with murder in the shooting of 34-year-old Carlos Olivera of Bluffton on Christmas Eve in 2010. A jury deliberated less than three hours before finding Oates guilty of the lesser charge.  Judge Brooks Goldsmith also sentenced Oates to five years for possession of a weapon in the commission of a violent crime. The sentences will be served concurrently, and Oates will receive credit for time served since the shooting.

He must serve at least 85 percent of his sentence before being eligible for release.  Olivera’s family gasped when the jury found Oates not guilty of murder, according to The Island Packet newspaper.  Goldsmith told the jury before deliberations, over objections from the defense, that they could choose to find Oates guilty of the lesser manslaughter charge, according to the newspaper.  Read more:

June 14, 2014

LITTLETON, Colo. (CBS4) – On this Flag Day there is controversy in a neighborhood in Littleton. A man says he’s in a battle with his homeowners association to fly what he calls his American flag. The HOA has now fined David Renner twice. “It doesn’t say how the pattern of stars is to be,” Renner said. Renner knows his flags — their history and what they represent. “In April I was flying my Gadsden flag,” he said. Neighbors complained and he got a warning.

“I went ahead and took down my Gadsden and i put up what i thought was the least offensive flag I could think of, and that was my Colorado flag,” Renner said. But that flag wouldn’t fly either and a month later he got a $100 fine. “I mean it’s like, ‘What state do they think we live in?’ ” he said.  Read more:

By Tammy Vigil

June 17, 2014

NORTHGLENN, Colo. — An emergency community meeting in Northglenn Tuesday night pits condo owners against their homeowner’s association (HOA) in Westminster. Owners of homes at Prospector’s Point are upset with their HOA, which they say has mismanaged their dues—and now they’re forced to pay the price. CAP Management says homeowners will have to come up with between $5 to $7 million to pay for serious repairs that could affect residents’ and visitors’ health and safety. There’s the peeling paint, the crumbling sidewalk and disintegrating drywall.

“The property has been neglected for the past 10 years. Partly because of the recession, partly because of poor construction, initially. But now the community is at a state where the city is requiring we do $5 million dollars of work,” says Chris Crigler, of CAP Management, which took over managing the HOA about a year-and-a-half ago. Read more:

By Roger Lohse

June 18, 2014

LAUDERHILL, Fla. – Some residents of the Castle Gardens condominium complex feel they’re being held hostage by a group of badge-wearing, gun-toting, wannabe police officers. They’re actually security guards for a company called Elite Tactical Services, which was hired by the condo board last year. “What the hell is going on here? We’re not even safe from our own security force?” said resident Stuart Katz.

The company employs heavily armed guards who residents said drive around in unmarked cars with red and white lights and pull over motorists, point guns at people who they feel are acting suspiciously, and use handcuffs. “Guns up here, gun up here, gun here, Taser here. Full tactical gear, some have been in masks,” said Al Sutton, who claims one of the guards pointed a gun at him last month after he questioned why an ETS officer pulled over his son, who was simply coming to pick up his 6-month-old daughter.  Read more:

Bloomberg News

June 12, 2014

LOS ANGELES — For the first time since the U.S. housing crash, new condominium towers are sprouting in downtown Seattle, Boston and Los Angeles as developers bet on the return of the riskiest type of residential real estate.A 41-story tower rising in Seattle is the first phase of the largest condo development ever in the city. Buyers are signing deals to reserve units in two new high-end projects in Boston. In Los Angeles, a 22-floor building is slated for construction later this year, the first ground-up high-rise condo project downtown since 2005. Construction cranes also spike the skylines of Washington, Houston, Miami, New York and San Francisco as financing gradually returns to a real estate class that lenders shunned for years. Condos are regaining favor after a surge in rental demand pushed the U.S. apartment-vacancy rate to the lowest level in a decade, sending urban rents soaring, while the inventory of for-sale housing remains historically low. “We’re in the very early stages of a long recovery in condos,” said Sam Khater, deputy chief economist for Irvine, California-based CoreLogic. “Now you’re seeing rental booming, but today’s renters are going to be tomorrow’s condo buyers.”  Read more:

By Kim Miller

June 16, 2014

Owners in a Boynton Beach condominium community are suing a company that is trying to turn the development into apartments, saying they were “threatened” and told that they should sell to the company or lose their homes no matter what. Via Lugano, which suffered huge drops in property values after the real estate bust, now has 90 percent of its units owned by the Newtown, Mass.-based Northland Investment Corp. A state condo termination law gives the company the ability to turn the units back into apartments, but it must offer fair market value to owners or give them a share of the new converted complex in exchange for their units.The Palm Beach Post first wrote about the owners’ dilemma in September when the company owned about 77 percent of the units. The lawsuit filed last week, says the firm now owns 90 percent.  Read more:http://realtime.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2014/06/16/boynton-beach-condo-owners-threatened-by-takeover-company/

By Amanda Alix

June 15, 2014

Many homeowners who have bought into the American dream by purchasing a condominium are now regretting that decision, as some find themselves unable to sell or rent their units, while others face court battles with investors trying to force them out of their homes.

Condo boom gone bust
Like other types of housing, condos experienced buyer popularity during the housing boom. But the housing crash put an end to that party, too, and numerous condominium owners are still being negatively affected by the housing crisis. Many are finding themselves stuck as stringent lending regulations make selling nearly impossible – even as condo rules stop them from renting their homes as a stopgap measure.

Part of the problem concerns changes made by the Federal Housing Administration over the past few years. In an effort to protect taxpayers from risk, the FHA has tightened condo lending rules to the point where obtaining a mortgage for such a purchase is almost impossible.

Because the FHA rules apply to the entire development, even buyers who would qualify for such a loan won’t be able to get one. FHA loans are often used by first-time homebuyers, a group particularly apt to buy less-expensive condo units as a starter home. Though other types of credit are available, these potential buyers may not qualify.  Read more:

Tampa Bay Times:  Tenants caught in quagmire of homeowners association foreclosures

In February, a new company in Tampa called RE-710 got a terrific deal. It paid $5,700 for a five-bedroom home valued at $311,000. The same month, RE-710 acquired control of dozens of other houses and condos throughout the Tampa Bay area for just cents on the dollar. Aside from their bargain prices, the properties had something else in common. The buyers were also the sellers: three Tampa men, including convicted fraudster Barry Haught. According to court records, Haught and his partners created RE-710 and transferred 44 rental properties to it over three weeks. A day later, RE-710 declared bankruptcy.

The move was part of an ongoing game of real estate keep-away. The company pays for a type of short-term ownership of the properties and quickly rents them out. It then shuffles properties between companies and uses bankruptcy court to keep banks and other creditors at bay. In the meantime, Haught and his associates could continue to collect thousands of dollars in rent each month.

RE-710, so new it didn’t have employees or furniture, “concedes to having filed this (case) for the sole purpose” of delaying foreclosure, the bankruptcy trustee wrote. He also accused the company’s management of “dishonesty, incompetence and gross mismanagement.”  Read more: