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Carriage Park developer faces foreclosure

The Carriage Park property owned by developer Dale Hamlin is headed for sale on the courthouse steps next month.

Unless Hamlin takes legal action to stop the foreclosure, the buildings and land he owns in the Haywood Road community will be sold to satisfy $13 million the lender says he owes.
In lawsuits filed in Henderson County Superior Court, Arendale Holdings, a Florida-based developer and manager of high-end resort properties and golf course communities, won a judgment to foreclose on the property. Last month a judge appointed a receiver to protect the Hamlin-owned assets until the foreclosure is finalized and the property sold.
According to the lender’s lawsuits, Carriage Park Associates LLC, Hamlin and his wife, Elissa B. Hamlin, have failed to repay a $9.7 million loan on the land and buildings made on Nov. 11, 2011, and failed to pay property taxes on the 124 parcels in 2015. Hamlin has pocketed earnest money without putting it in escrow, and faces several civil judgments that have resulted in liens on the property, according to Arendale’s complaint seeking the appointment of a receiver.
The Hendersonville Lightning reached Hamlin Monday night to ask whether he planned to contest the foreclosure.
“Absolutely but I can’t talk to you,” he said. “My attorney has told me I can’t talk to the press but absolutely we’re contesting it. I can’t go into any further.”
Hamlin’s attorney, Trade Elkins, did not return phone calls seeking comment on the status of the foreclosure. Nor could the Lightning reach the trustee who is responsible for carrying out the sale, Mark A. Pinkston.


Lender is a high-end developer

“Until everything thing went south they didn’t know what was going on,” said Chad Sharkey, a Raleigh attorney who represents the Arendale. Hamlin continually assured the lender that “it was going to turn around and they were going to start selling lots.”
Court documents show that Hamlin defaulted on payments of $1,987,200 each on Dec. 31 of the past four years. When the Dec. 31, 2015, deadline came and went Arendale filed the lawsuit seeking to foreclose on the property.
The foreclosure, ordered by the clerk of superior court on March 7, affects only the sales office, the Hamlins’ home and 21 lots. Most of the improved common area of the development is owned by the Carriage Park homeowners association. Sharkey said the residents have reason to be optimistic about the change in ownership.
“It’s going to be a sale and most of the time these wind up with the lender buying it at the sale, which should work out for the best because in this situation Arendale is actually a development company,” Sharkey said. “It’s not like a bank sitting on it and waiting to figure out what to do with it.”
Arendale bought in to the region in a big way two years ago.
In December 2013, the privately held Jacksonville-based development company acquired the Cliffs Communities from SunTX Urbana and The Carlile Group. Arendale became the owner and manager of eight upscale golf course developments in the South Carolina Upstate and Western North Carolina, including the Cliffs at Glassy on U.S. 25 in Travelers Rest, three Cliffs communities on Lake Keowee, and the Cliffs at Walnut Cove and High Carolina in Asheville. The development company owns and manages residential, commercial, golf course and resort properties in six states.
Richard Ackman, the president of the Carriage Park Homeowners Association, said he was not familiar enough with the details of the foreclosure to comment.
“I really don’t know and can’t comment because of all the legal stuff that’s going on,” he said.


Hamlin pocketed earnest money, lender says

In an order on Feb. 11, Superior Court Judge Bradley B. Letts appointed a receiver to take control of the Hamlin property, giving the manager, IPM Corp. of Brevard, authority to oversee the property, pay bills and market the lots.
“Pursuant to the order the receiver is authorized to sell property,” Sharkey said. “If someone wants to come in and buy a lot it’s to everyone’s interest to have the receiver sell it.”
The sale of individual lots is improbable, for a variety of reasons. The foreclosure sale is just 17 days away. The title to the property is clouded not only by the lender’s action to foreclose, the authority of the receiver, the erosion violations and the unpaid taxes but also by civil judgments other plaintiffs have won against Hamlin and Carriage Park.
“When I looked a month or two ago there was three or four judgments out there and I know other suits have been filed in the interim,” Sharkey said. “If you get a judgment against Carriage Park it’s a lien against all property owned by Carriage Park on paper by record.”
Arendale’s foreclosure complaint lists judgments plaintiffs have won in four civil lawsuits — three filed last year and one from 2012 — and another pending lawsuit “which seeks judgment for earnest money deposited with (Carriage Park) that was never returned.”
Carriage Park “continues to take earnest money deposits from prospective purchasers for lots and properties on which it has no intention of or is incapable of selling …” Hamlin continues to solicit earnest money, the lawsuit said, and in some cases has taken cash deposits from different purchasers for the same lot. He’s paid none of that to the lender, Arendale said, nor deposited it in an escrow account and held it in trust. “ … There will likely be new civil actions filed against (Hamlin and Carriage Park) seeking the return of earnest money and resultant judgments” against the property, the lender said.
By “fraudulently soliciting deposits from prospective purchasers and … alienating and angering” those potential buyers, Hamlin is devaluing the property as a marketable development, the lawsuit said.
Hamlin has failed to fix erosion problems Henderson County regulators cited in an inspection report, the complaint said, making the property “subject to fines … for the continuing violations.”
If the court allowed Hamlin to keep the Carriage Park property, the lender said he would likely fail to pay delinquent property taxes, fail to fix the erosion violations and “continue to defraud prospective customers out of earnest money deposits” — all the while alienating buyers and devaluing the property.
The lawsuit asked for a judgment of $13.6 million on the unpaid debt plus $2 million in attorney’s fees.