Tampa landlord sued over apartment deal

Clarification In a series of articles published in the St. Petersburg Times, certain apartment complexes, including Amberwood Apartments, were identified as being owned by Steven S. Green, personally. However, these properties are or were owned solely by corporations in which Mr. Green is a shareholder, and were not owned by Mr. Green, personally.

TAMPA -- Two New York investors have accused apartment landlord Steven Green of fraud and conspiracy in a failed $3.44-million deal to buy Green's Greenwich Commons, an 82-unit apartment complex near the University of South Florida.

Green, the subject of Hillsborough County's largest code enforcement case ever, is accused in a lawsuit filed Monday of a "scheme" to induce the would-be buyers to sign a contract so he could "loot" an escrow deposit of $28,989.

The New York investors have been unable to get that money or their $50,000 down payment refunded even though Green sold the apartments to another buyer on Oct. 7 for $3.29-million.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, Koozhampala Joseph and Jose Gopurathingal, say Green failed to honor their March 26 contract by refusing to hand over financial data regarding Greenwich Commons, at 14608 43rd St. N.

Green maintained there are no balance sheets or financial statements for the apartments, and, as late as August, said he had never filed the 2001 corporate tax return on Greenwich Commons required by the IRS, according to the lawsuit.

"He had no tax returns for Greenwich Commons but he kept pushing me to close," Joseph said. "It was very strange."

The deal fell apart, the lawsuit states, after the Bank of America declined to approve the application by the New York businessmen to assume Green's $2.9-million loan on Greenwich Commons. The application required an escrow deposit of $28,989, representing 1 percent of the loan amount.

The bank actually declined the application because Green was delinquent on his loan payments, and a loan must be current to be assumed, the lawsuit says.

Records show that on Aug. 2, Green wrote to Bank of America saying the New York buyers had canceled the sales contract. Green also claimed in the letter that the $28,989 was his and should be applied to his past-due mortgage payment on Greenwich Commons.

But Joseph and Gopurathingal had not backed out of the deal at that point, and the escrow deposit of $28,989 had been made by them, not Green, the lawsuit says.

Also named as a defendant in the lawsuit is Bill Karatomisos, a Realtor at Great American Realty of Tampa, the company that took the $50,000 down payment on the apartment contract.

The lawsuit says Karatomisos breached his fiduciary duty by failing to divulge information pertaining to "Green's reputation for fraud, misrepresentation and mishandling of apartment code violations that were published in the local media."

Much of that reputation was recorded after the county shut down Green's Amberwood apartments in northern Hillsborough in May upon finding some 500 code violations. Fines assessed at $5,000 a day reached $567,250 Monday.

As dozens of Amberwood tenants were forced from their homes, the media reported that Green had been hit with $2.3-million in code violation fines on New York apartments in the early 1990s and had made the Village Voice's list of the 10 worst landlords in the city.

More recently, Green has been sued by several contractors and two banks. In July, SunTust Banks foreclosed on Green's 8,157-square-foot, $1.72-million mansion at 801 S Delaware Ave., alleging he had missed two $3,789 monthly payments.

In September, Wells Fargo bank foreclosed on Green's 168-unit Club at Woodland Pond apartments, saying he had transferred the property to a new company and obtained a $4.4-million second mortgage without the bank's consent.

Green's attorney did not return a phone call from the St. Petersburg Times on Monday.

Karatomisos said Monday that when the Greenwich Commons contract was signed in March, he had known nothing of Green's business reputation. He said he sought a release from Green so that the $50,000 down payment could be refunded to the New York investors. When Green failed to provide one, the realty company deposited the $50,000 with the Florida Department of State pending the outcome of the civil dispute, Karatomisos said.

-- Jeff Testerman can be reached at (813) 226-3422 or by e-mail at testerman@sptimes.com.

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