A dilapidated house in Castaway Cove Wave VI that has drawn the ire of neighbors for almost a decade – and racked up tens of thousands of dollars in contractor liens and fines for city and HOA code violations – is now set to be auctioned on Oct. 20 to pay off more than $58,000 in delinquent property taxes.
The 4,470-square-foot, three-bedroom, three-bath house at 1215 Spanish Lace Lane, which sits on .35-acre corner lot, has belonged to the same family since it was built in 1988. After John Lucey passed away in 2006, his widow, Dorothy Lucey, became the primary owner, but she passed away, too, according to court testimony, and the home hasn’t been inhabited for many years. The couple’s daughter, Maureen Lucey, who is shown in county property records as an additional owner of the house along with her deceased mother, appears to be the current owner.
The tax auction is set for 11 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 20, with an opening bid of $58,525.86, which is the total of unpaid property taxes since 2023, plus interest and late fees. The house and lot have an assessed value of $1,039,179
Lot value is about $800,000.
This case is separate from a foreclosure lawsuit filed by the City of Vero Beach to collect more than $140,000 in unpaid fines assessed by the city due to the home’s dilapidated condition.
Neighbors say the house has been empty for at least a decade and has fallen into serious disrepair. Leaks in the roof caused ceilings to collapse and rotted holes in exterior walls. The lawn and landscaping have been left to grow wild with vines climbing exterior walls.
The scheduled delinquent property tax auction is just the latest chapter in this ongoing saga. The City of Vero Beach first cited Lucey in 2017 for roof damage and rotted soffits and facia. The city received a new round of complaints the following year about tarps on the roof covering failed repairs.
The county building division, which handles permitting and inspection for the city, issued a Notice of Violation on April 22, 2021. It stated that the home was “an unsafe structure” and required Lucey to either tear the house down within 60 days or complete all repairs within 180 days.
The 180-day time limit ran out in October 2021, with the roof still in disrepair, but the county did not enforce its order because, in the meantime, Maureen Lucey had hired Orchid Island Roofing to make the repairs and paid them a $23,381 deposit for the work.
The city also took no further action at that time, assuming Lucey was finally addressing the problems at the property.
Neighbors were relieved to see workers begin installing a new roof in late 2021, but Orchid had to stop work shortly after starting because years of water leaks had damaged roof trusses and other structural framing, making the house unsafe for workers. A second contractor pulled permits in December 2021 and January 2022 to replace water-damaged trusses and other structural damage.
Afterward, Orchid Island Roofing continued working on the roof, replacing damaged plywood and “drying in” the roof – which means installing flashing and a waterproof underlayment. County inspectors signed off on that phase of construction on May 19, 2022.
The next phase would have been finishing the roof with metal panels. But Orchid halted construction again when Lucey refused to pay them the second installment of $40,390 for the work it had already completed.
It was around then that several neighbors began circulating a petition to have the property condemned.
Orchid Island Roofing placed a lien on the property for the unpaid second installment and sued Lucey in September 2022, to foreclose on the lien. Orchid’s construction permit expired later and no work has been done on the roof since.
Maureen Lucey told the court she was not responsible for paying Orchid because her mother had signed the proposal, not her. However, Orchid’s president, Doug Leman, testified during the trial that Maureen had told him her mother, Dorothy, had died before the proposal was even presented. Judge Cynthia Cox also noted that Dorothy Lucey’s signature on the proposal more closely matched Maureen’s signature and that Maureen was the one who verbally authorized the work.
Cox filed a final judgment in the case on Sept. 4, 2025, for the unpaid $40,390 installment, plus $46,781.37 in interest, attorney’s fees and court costs, for a total of $87,171.37. When Lucey again failed to pay up, the property was scheduled for a foreclosure auction last year, on Oct. 7, 2025.
But Lucey paid up at the last moment, on the eve of the auction, which was then canceled.
Leman said he is satisfied with that result and considers the matter resolved. His company had ordered and pre-cut the metal panels for Lucey’s roof, but he was able to use the panels on another roofing job, he said.
In the meantime, Lucey’s neighbors took their petition to the city. After Orchid’s construction permit expired in October 2022, the city’s code enforcement board fined Lucey $100 and gave her 24 days to complete the roof. When that deadline came and went with no progress on construction, the city began fining Lucey $100 for each day the violation continued.
Another $50-per-day fine was later added for another code violation. By the time the city filed suit for foreclosure on both liens last September, the total amount of fines had grown to $145,950, not including recording costs and attorney’s fees.
In July 2023, the Castaway Cove Wave VI Homeowners Association (HOA) also placed a lien on the property for $2,650 in unpaid fines for the unfinished roof and associated legal fees. Then in April of this year, the HOA placed a second lien on the property for $7,993.44 in unpaid assessments, including interest. The HOA liens are included in the city’s foreclosure action against Lucey.
Lucey is defending herself in the suit and has claimed the circuit court for Indian River County does not have jurisdiction over the matter and that it failed to properly serve her a summons for the case.
Hearings have been set and postponed several times. The most recent hearing on the city’s motion for a summary judgment, set for Oct. 7, has been postponed until Nov. 25.
According to Will Carbonell, the county’s deputy building official, after signing off on the dry-in phase of roof construction in May 2022, the county has not performed any other inspections and has not cited or fined Lucey, even though the county permit has been expired for almost four years and the house remains in serious disrepair.
Carbonell said this project predates his time working for the county and that he was not familiar with the process after a project is abandoned. He also said he does not know what the process is for the county to condemn a property as unsafe.
In addition to being an eyesore and a health hazard, neighbors fear the condition of the property has diminished their own property values.
While the news of the Oct. 20 tax auction might offer a glimmer of hope that the property will change hands and the new owner will finally finish the roof and clean up the yard, residents won’t be holding their collective breath.
“We will believe it when we see it. We’ve been down this road so many times before,” said Angelique “Angel” Padulo, who lives across the street from Lucey’s house. Padulo helped start the petition in 2022.
“I’m dumbfounded by how long this has gone on. It’s become comical at this point,” said Padulo, who added that she expects Lucey to swoop in at the last minute again to pay the delinquent taxes and stop the auction. The swimming pool “is now a swamp,” she said. “The house hasn’t had air conditioning for all these years, so imagine the mold and the animal infestation.
“It’s a tear-down at this point. I would hate to see a family buy this house. Trying to fix it up would be a detriment to their health. It just needs to be removed because it’s not fair to the rest of the community who take care of their homes and value the neighborhood.”
If the house is sold at auction on Oct. 20, that will make the city’s lawsuit moot in some sense, but the purchaser will be responsible for clearing the liens placed on the property by the city and Castaway Cove HOA before they can sell it.
Maureen Lucey could not be reached for comment for this story.
