PORT ST. LUCIE — Hundreds of Tesoro property owners aren’t waiting around while their subdivision’s developer grinds through bankruptcy court: They’re filing their own lawsuits against Ginn Resorts and its affiliates.

Property owners are charging Ginn with a host of wrongdoings, including selling lots through Ponzi schemes, fraudulently inflating property values, lying to and duping clients, failing to account for hundreds of thousands of dollars in membership dues and missing escrow accounts and backing out on promises to build amenities.

Timothy Vetrano, 72, a retiree from Manhasset, N.Y., who lives at Tesoro with his wife Marilyn, said his experience falls under “buyer beware.”
(more…)

A group of buyers in communities built by The Ginn Co. — including grandiose Tesoro in Port St. Lucie — are claiming the developer and its affiliates fraudulently inflated real estate prices.

A class-action lawsuit filed late last month in U.S. District Court in Jacksonville targets Celebration-based Ginn, its sister companies, financing partner Lubert-Adler and banks that worked with Ginn, including SunTrust, Fifth Third Bancorp and Wachovia Bank.

The suit alleges Ginn led a scheme to bloat prices at every step of the process — from lavish sales launches to manipulated appraisals. Among the claims: Ginn staffers posed as competing buyers to pressure people to sign a sale contract.

The misdeeds happened in more than a dozen Ginn developments, starting as early as the late 1990s, according to the suit.

Some properties are now worth as little as 10 percent of their appraised value, “a phenomenon that absolutely cannot be explained by mere market downturn,” the suit states.

Buyers from as far as England and as near as Boca Raton are parties. They are seeking class certification.

“We will vigorously defend against this litigation and any other false allegation brought against our company,” Ginn spokesman Ryan Julison said.