SEBASTIAN – The former Flagship Marina owner said he’s considering his options after a judge denied his motion regarding the property’s foreclosure.
Sebastian business owner Damien Gilliams said outside the courtroom Monday that he is considering filing an appeal of Judge Paul Kanarek’s decision to deny his motion.
That motion, if the judge had approved, could have forced a do-over of the foreclosure and subsequent auction of the Flagship Marina property, which currently has an open Mulligan’s Beach House Bar and Grill.
Oculina Bank, Gilliams’s lender, bought back the property at a foreclosure auction earlier this year and plans to close on the site’s sale to Mulligan’s owner George Hart this month.
Hart said on Dec. 3 – the restaurant’s opening day – that Gilliams’s legal maneuver would not impact his plans for the eatery.
“It doesn’t make me any difference,” he said at the time.
According to court filings, Gilliams’s attorney argued that there had been a substantial error made in the property’s legal description.
The attorney, Stephen Navaretta, alleged that the legal description for the foreclosure on what once was Flagship Marina was incorrect and should have been fixed before the property was sold at auction.
Because it was not, according to his motion, and the mistake was placed in the advertisement for sale and foreclosure deed, “the foreclosure process must begin anew.”
As evidence for his position, Navaretta included an e-mail from a professional surveyor and mapper that offers the opinion that the legal description for the Flagship Marina property overlaps an adjacent property, according to court records.
Navaretta also alleged that Oculina Bank representatives were aware of the error and had offered Gilliams a sum of money to ignore the error and to cooperate and fix it, the records show.
Oculina’s attorney, Calvin Brown, filed a response to Navaretta’s motion denying the allegations that bank representatives made any such offer.
The response also refutes the e-mail Navaretta includes in his motion, saying that the e-mail “does not say what the allegations” in the motion “says it does.”
Brown argued that the bank foreclosed on both parcels in question, “therefore, there is no prejudice or injury to” Gilliams.
Last year, Oculina Bank filed a $1.8 million foreclosure suit on Flagship Marina, which was supposed to go to auction last November. Gilliams filed for bankruptcy, which halted the foreclosure proceedings.
At that time, Gilliams told VeroNews.com that he had made an arrangement with a potential buyer for the property but Oculina Bank refused to cooperate.
The site had been placed on the market to sell for $2.7 million, though Gilliams’s appraisal for the property, according to court records, was closer to $3.8 million.
The Flagship Marina property includes space for a restaurant, an upstairs apartment unit, and docks.
