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Letter to the editor

Divided over a house

By SUSAN TAYLOR MARTIN
Published June 13, 2007

ST. PETERSBURG

Make no mistake about it, 81-year-old Mary Strong says, she is a good Christian woman. Photos of Gospel singers cover her walls, and her sofa is piled high with stuffed toys for children from church.

Richard Antinore, 63, considers himself a good Christian, too. A graduate of a Bible course in Bradenton, he has a painting of Jesus over his fireplace and a Web site from which folks can download sermons.

For three years, Strong and Antinore were friends, drawn to each other by their faith. But now they are in a most unholy feud.

Strong claims Antinore scammed her out of her house of 33 years, getting her to sign a quitclaim deed in March that made him the owner of record. She is still paying the mortgage, however, so she is still the rightful owner, she says.

Not so, Antinore counters. He insists Strong gave him the run-down house in the Midtown area because she couldn't afford to repair serious city code violations. Antinore says he called the lender about paying off the mortgage, but says it wouldn't talk to him because the loan is in Strong's name.

In the meantime, Strong - who has moved to an apartment - is collecting $700 a month rent on the house while Antinore - whom the city considers the legal owner - is spending hundreds of dollars to bring the place up to code. The onetime friends are fast becoming enemies.

"The nicer the house started looking, the more Mary wanted it back, " Antinore says. "The bottom line is, she ain't getting it back."

"He befriended me and I didn't know he was befriending me to take my house, " Strong says. "I'm not going to let him have it."

She helped out at store

Mary Strong has spent all of her 81 years in St. Petersburg, many of them working as a maid. A minister's daughter, she played keyboard with a Gospel group and still dresses up for concerts.

About three years ago, she met Antinore, a former security guard who owned a convenience store near the Williams Park bus stop.

Strong says she used to sit in the store and watch Antinore's employees to make sure they weren't stealing from him. Both she and Antinore agree he often gave her food and invited her to his Spanish-style home in the Kenwood area.

"She's a Christian and she's exuded Christianity to me since I've known her, " says Antinore, whose Web site calls him "Rev. Richard Antinore."

In 1974, Strong and her late husband bought their house near 49th Street S. She refinanced it in 2000 and makes payments of about $465 a month. Since a serious health problem a few years ago, Strong has rented out the house while she lived first with acquaintances, then in an apartment.

Code violations began piling up at the 70-year-old house, to the point the city's End Team - which works with low-income, elderly homeowners - contacted Strong last year.

"The code violations were so severe she didn't have money to correct them, " says Vel Thompson, who runs the program. "Had she been living in the property I could have given her some assistance, but it probably would not have corrected all the violations because we don't do those inside the house" - only exterior problems such as weeds and peeling paint.

On March 15, Strong and Antinore went to a title company where she deeded over the house "for good consideration and the sum of $10."

"She said to me, 'I'm sick of the city. I'm sick of problems with the house. I want to give you the house, ' " Antinore says. "She knew I had money and knew I could turn it around. Her mind is sharp as a tack."

Strong now says she signed only because she thought Antinore was "going to give me something out of the deal" when he refinanced. But Antinore says he had already given Strong $1, 000 to move into her apartment, in addition to buying clothes for her.

And only after the deed was transferred, Antinore says, did he discover that Strong had found a new tenant for the house and collected $1, 400 in rent and deposits without telling him. He agreed that Strong could temporarily keep the rent, which was more than enough to cover the mortgage payments until the house was refinanced.

Relations between the two deteriorated last week when Antinore told Strong to stay away from the property, she says. Antinore claims Strong has been harassing the tenant - an elderly woman with two grandchildren - and once entered without permission while the tenant was away. The renter confirmed that.

On Friday, Strong took a bus to see Thompson of the city's End Team.

"She said, 'I remember you as that kind lady that came to my house nine months ago, ' " Thompson says. "I took that as God's way of saying, 'You need to do something to try to help this lady.' She doesn't have any children and no obvious family trying to take care of her."

By phone, Thompson and Strong talked to a representative of the mortgage company, who told Strong to keep making the payments. He also told the women he had grown suspicious when another person - Antinore - had called about the loan, and that the matter had been referred to the company's senior citizen abuse department, Thompson recalls.

Law leans one way

However, an expert says, Strong may have no legal claim to the house unless she can prove in court that she was defrauded in deeding the property to Antinore.

"It's certainly an illustration of why you should see a lawyer or somebody who can assist you at a time when you permanently transfer property, " says John Cunningham, executive director of Gulf Coast Legal Services. "You don't rely on oral promises - that's a cautionary note because no matter who's making the promise you have no way to enforce it."

Based on a reporter's description of the dealings on the house, Cunningham said Antinore could be entitled to some compensation for "his time and trouble."

"But any property in St. Petersburg would have some value, and it doesn't seem he'd be entitled to the benefit of the whole value of the property, " Cunningham added.

Pinellas County appraisal records show the house has a just market value of $73, 700, about $20, 000 more than the mortgaged amount. Antinore says he doesn't want to sell the house, but plans to fix it up and continue renting it.

"There's no money in that house except what I can borrow to repay myself, " he says. Hit with a long list of code violations in May, he already has replaced the rotted back stairs, redone plumbing and wiring and added window air conditioners.

"I've spent a lot of money and I still have more to spend, " Antinore says. "Mary hasn't put a red cent into it."

But Strong remains convinced Antinore stole her house.

"He talks of God and I thought we could trust one another. But he showed me another side of himself the day he carried me to the place where we did that quitclaim deed."

Susan Taylor Martin can be contacted at susan@sptimes.com.

[Last modified June 13, 2007, 07:02:44]