VERO BEACH — A high-level financial struggle over the troubled Vero Fashion Outlets now may reach into an owner’s family trust, court records show.

In early October the outdoor mall filed for bankruptcy in federal court, a move that halted a foreclosure lawsuit filed by the mall’s creditor, LNV Corp. of Nevada, in Indian River Circuit Court. LNV Corp.’s attorney Kenneth Curtin contends the mall defaulted on a $32 million loan for purchase of the 329,000-square-foot mall in 2007. (more…)

Regions Bank has foreclosed on two communities owned by Shelby Homes in Indian River County, according to civil lawsuits filed in Indian River Circuit Court.

The total judgment on the two properties is $25.7 million, likely one of the largest foreclosure amounts in Indian River County.

A foreclosure judgment in the amount of $21.93 million was made against Shelby Homes at Millstone Inc., developer of Millstone Landing, a luxury gated community on 300 acres southwest of 27th Avenue and 17th Street Southwest. According to court documents, the original mortgage on Millstone Landing was $34.45 million.

The foreclosure judgment on the 82-acre Shelby Homes at Pine Lake Inc. is $3.79 million, according to court documents. That is undeveloped raw land south of the Vero Fashion Outlets mall on State Road 60.

Regions Bank spokesman Mel Campbell declined to comment. Regions Bank’s Miami-based attorney Ronald Rosengarten couldn’t be reached for comment.

Fort Lauderdale-based Shelby Homes President Robert Shelley said the foreclosure at Millstone Landing would only affect vacant raw land. No residential homes, community amenities or common residential areas would be affected.

“This is all pretty simple, it’s just a part of business restructuring,” Shelley said about Millstone. “They are just taking back certain aspects of the property which is part of a negotiated settlement.”

Mindy Mora, a partner in the corporate restructuring group at the law firm of Bilzin, Sumberg, Baena, Price & Axelrod in Miami, said the foreclosure was part of a “restructuring workout” that involved different Shelby Homes projects locally and in Fort Myers.

“It was consensual, expected and not contested,” Mora said. “Essentially, we worked through a resolution of differences with Regions Bank.”

Both properties are scheduled to be sold at the Indian River County Courthouse on Oct. 2 at 11 a.m.

“This doesn’t affect any existing homeowners,” Shelley said. “No one is going to be left being stranded or anything.”

In 2004, Shelby Homes entered the Treasure Coast with its seaside community of Mariner Bay located just south of Seaway Drive on Hutchinson Island. Shelby’s other Treasure Coast developments include Bradford Place in Vero Beach and two projects in Fort Pierce: Carriage Pointe Estates and Mariner Cove.

Millstone Landing was to contain 630 homes and had committed to setting aside 18 acres for an elementary school that would have been part of what county planners call the South County Initiative, seven projects by different developers, all planned as one community of 2,736 housing units on 1,218 acres.

Indian River County Planning Director Stan Boling said Shelby Homes had fulfilled its roads and infrastructure obligations with the county. Utilities and infrastructure for the school have also been built, but the building of the school has been delayed indefinitely according to the Indian River County School Board’s five-year plan.

“We may have a number of projects sit dormant for a while,” Boling said about the South County Initiative. “Right now there is no need for the school … but in the long term it’s still a good size and that obligation has been fulfilled.”

Mark Tripson sold the massive family property on behalf of brother, Jens, and sisters Karen and Logan to Shelby Homes in 2005 for $8 million, according to public records. His family started farming the land in 1946 at the then JoBar Farms, named after his parents, John and Barbara Tripson.

“I feel sorry for him,” Tripson said about Shelby Homes President Robert Shelley. “But I don’t have the money to buy it back.”

Nadia Vanderhoof, TCPalm.com

VERO BEACH — If the owner of Vero Fashion Outlets mall doesn’t answer a $32.15-million mortgage foreclosure lawsuit by Sept. 16, it could lose the right to defend itself in the case, according to attorneys.

If so, a judge could order the outdoor mall at Interstate 95 and State Road 60 — the first large mall in the county — to be sold.

“We plan to stay open during the foreclosure and after,” said West Palm Beach attorney Kenneth Curtin, who represents the mortgage holder, LNV Corp., of Nevada. “The mall will stay the same as it is now, with tenants.” (more…)

VERO BEACH — A Nevada corporation that holds the mortgage for Vero Fashion Outlets is seeking to foreclose on the mall, according to civil lawsuit filed in Indian River Circuit Court.

LNV Corp. of Nevada is seeking $32.15 million, including principal and interest, because the mall defaulted on payments, according to the lawsuit.

“Vero (Fashion Outlets) has defaulted,” wrote attorney Kenneth Curtin, of West Palm Beach, in a lawsuit filed Aug. 26. It is assigned to Circuit Judge Paul Kanarek. No action has been taken in the civil lawsuit and the mall’s owners have not responded to the allegations. Curtin did not return calls Wednesday.
(more…)

STUART — A Martin County jury tomorrow will likely begin deliberating the case of former Jensen Beach pastor Rodney McGill and his wife, Shalonda McGill, accused of orchestrating a real estate scheme that ended in more than $1 million in foreclosed property from three unwitting investors.
After a week on the other side of the witness stand, the former pastor and real estate investment pitchman took the stand in his own defense Monday, telling a jury that unscrupulous mortgage brokers were the ones to blame for an alleged mortgage scheme that ruined the credit of the women he and Shalonda helped invest in local properties. (more…)

MARTIN COUNTY — Foreclosure activity in Martin County hit an all-time high in June.

Of the 472 Martin County homes in some stage of foreclosure, 398 were first-time notifications of default with intent to file suit, according to data released Thursday by California-based RealtyTrac (www.realtytrac.com), an online marketplace for foreclosure properties.

The 472 was 84 percent higher than May’s total and nearly three times the number of homes in any stage of foreclosure a year earlier.

Since RealtyTrac began tracking foreclosures in 2005, the highest number of Martin County homes in some stage of foreclosure was 312 in October 2008. Homes in foreclosure never topped 100 until they reached 106 in August 2007. (more…)

PORT ST. LUCIE — A lock on the door was the only notice Jessica Rufo got that Hayes World Day Care & Learning Center had closed.

Rufo, a St. Lucie County School District employee, is keeping her 3-year-old daughter at home for the summer, but had left Hayes World about $500 to hold a spot for Elizabeth in the fall. Driving by the Darwin Boulevard center this weekend, Rufo noticed locks on the door.

A message on Hayes World’s phone service said the day-care center is “temporarily closed,” but offered no other information.
(more…)

ST. LUCIE COUNTY — More than a year after developers of the planned Cloud Grove had the county put the controversial 12,000-home project “on hold,” their creditor has added it to the Treasure Coast’s ranks of foreclosed properties.

“I imagine this pretty much closes any opportunities for that project,” St. Lucie County Commission Chairwoman Paula Lewis said this week.

MLIC Asset Holdings LLC, of Morristown, N.J., an affiliate of the lender, Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., filed the foreclosure suit in Circuit Court on Nov. 26, accusing the developers of failing to pay on a $48 million mortgage.

MLIC is scheduled to auction the Cloud Grove land to the “highest and best bidder” at 11 a.m. June 24 in the St. Lucie County Courthouse.

Officials from Lennar Homes, who were managing the project in a partnership with Centex Homes, could not be reached for comment. (more…)

While foreclosure actions on the Treasure Coast continued to fall during the first quarter of this year from the last quarter of 2008, the numbers for March indicate a resurgence.

Foreclosure actions — default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions — were down 18.5 percent in Indian River County, 3.3 percent in St. Lucie County and up 1.1 percent in Martin County in the first quarter compared with the last quarter of 2008, according to U.S. Foreclosure Market Report released today by RealtyTrac (realtytrac.com). Those first-quarter numbers were still up 40 percent to 68 percent from a year ago.

But foreclosure actions in March rose 71 percent from February in Indian River County and 48 percent in St. Lucie County, though they declined 6 percent in Martin County.
(more…)

Port St. Lucie is getting into the home-buying business.

The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development last week gave city officials the go-ahead on a plan to spend $13.5 million in federal money buying, repairing and reselling foreclosed homes.

Port St. Lucie hopes to start working with local real estate agents this week and begin closing on homes in as little as a month, said Pat Selmer, assistant director of the city’s community services department. (more…)