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Board of sold condo sues Pinellas leaders

By CRISTINA SILVA and SHEILA MULLANE ESTRADA
Published December 20, 2006

ST. PETE BEACH - A condo association is suing Pinellas County for failing to notify individual timeshare owners before auctioning off the building. The sale was held in November after the condo's management neglected to pay taxes for three years.

The Camelot Condominium Owners Association filed a lawsuit last week demanding that the property be returned to the owners and that Luke Investments, the West Palm Beach company that purchased the deed at the auction, be ordered to vacate the building.

The lawsuit raises a question about whether timeshare owners are protected under a state statute that requires a government agency to contact a building's owner before auctioning it off. State and county officials said that because a condo association represents the timeshare owners, only the board needs to be contacted before a tax deed sale. In state records, the Camelot association was listed as the contact for the property.

But Lee H. Rightmyer, a St. Petersburg attorney representing Camelot, said that the more than 900 timeshare owners should have been contacted about the sale.

The lawsuit names Luke Investments; Diane Nelson, Pinellas County tax collector; Ken Burke, clerk of the Circuit Court in Pinellas; and the county Board of Commissioners. Rightmyer was serving the lawsuit to the different parties Tuesday.

County officials said they had sent several certified notices of tax delinquency to Camelot's board association since 2003. In September, the county sent a letter to the board explaining that it had two months to pay the back taxes plus interest - about $180,000 - or the building would be auctioned on Nov. 29. No one responded.

Shortly after Luke Investments purchased the property, the firm sent a security guard there to turn timeshare owners and employees away. The building was closed.

It is still unclear why Camelot's taxes were never paid. John Predmore, president of the association, has not returned calls from the St. Petersburg Times or from timeshare owners.

Rightmyer said he is unsure if the board association received the notices the county sent.

"I don't know what the association did or didn't receive at this point. We are focusing on instead what the hundreds and hundreds of other individual owners did not receive," he said.

A representative of Luke Investments, which plans to reopen the building as a resort hotel, said the sale was final.

"Luke Investments owns the property," said Tara Mitchell, a manager at the company. "That is our only position."

Timeshare owners were not the only people who were hurt financially when Camelot was sold.

Five employees found themselves locked out and missing their paychecks. Their former employers told them that the new management had locked the condominium's checkbook in the office.

Carlos Martinez, head of maintenance, worked at the complex for eight years. On Dec. 2, armed security guards escorted him and all the other employees out of the building and told them not to return, he said.

"One of them just laughed at us and said, 'Merry Christmas,'" he said.

Cristina Silva can be reached at 727-893-8846 or csilva@sptimes.com.

[Last modified December 20, 2006, 06:23:18]