Association vows to fight $5.1 million demand

Colony Lender LLC told owners at the shuttered, 237-unit Colony Beach & Tennis Resort they have 20 days to pay $5,116,664.24 in an Aug. 15 letter. The demand came a week after Unicorp National Development Inc. President Chuck Whittall warned unit owners that they could face liabilities of more than $42,306,000 in damages from a 99-year recreational lease and a $23 million judgment against the association that Unicorp is pursuing.

Jay Yablon, president of the Colony Beach & Tennis Association, fired back Friday evening in an email Friday afternoon that accuses Unicorp and Colony Lender “are at the very heart of a hostile strategy to take over the Colony without protecting the Unit Owners or providing fair value to them.”

The letter includes a summary of recent Colony litigation from association attorney Jeff Warren.

“We are also in the process of reviewing the automatic stay violations arising from the deliberate and intentional conduct of Colony Lender and will pursue remedies on behalf of the individual Unit Owners through the Association,” it states.

Unicorp has an agreement to purchase Colony Lender LLC assets at the resort that include include a 95% interest in a 2.3-acre recreational property at the center of the resort plus 100% ownership of the restaurant complex and the former penthouse office of longtime Colony owner Dr. Murray “Murf” Klauber.

Yablon’s letter states that Colony Lender was the only stakeholder that objected to a proposed settlement between the association, Klauber and the Partnership trustee.

The association contends that Colony Lender has no remaining monetary claims because it over-bid a cash offer in a July foreclosure sale, satisfying a $14.9 million judgment against key Colony properties.

“Colony Lender’s refusal to accept a full cash payment on their purchased bank liens stripped away their long-standing legal pretense that Colony ‘Lender’ was just seeking to protect its legal ‘rights’ as a lender, and finally allows us to call them out for their true intentions. They and Unicorp are not protecting their own ‘rights.’ They are bent on trampling over everybody else’s legal rights,” Yablon wrote.

The parties will appear before U.S. Bankruptcy Judge K. Rodney May Aug. 21, for a status conference.

For more information, pick up an Aug. 21 copy of the Longboat Observer.

Contact Robin Hartill at [email protected].