PDF: Ocoee Mountain Club Information PDF: Ocoee Mtn Club Gazette
Gerry and Kathi Barrett were ready to live their dream: Move to a quiet, beautiful mountain home to enjoy their retirement away from Florida’s heat and hordes of old people.
They thought they’d found their refuge at the Ocoee Mountain Club in Benton, Tenn. It was close to Chattanooga shopping and culture, but peaceful for retreat time.
“It’s turned into a nightmare,” said Barrett, recounting the horror of moving in and immediately finding lien after lien filed against his new log home by contractors and building companies.
“We paid the developer,” Mrs. Barrett said. “But he didn’t pay the bills. So we have $70,000 in nine liens against us.”
“And we can’t close and get a mortgage with liens on the house,” her husband added.
The Barretts are among at least seven homeowners in the more than 211-lot development that boasts the “best mountain views in the Ocoee.”
There are just over a dozen homes already built there, and more than half have liens totaling more than $150,000 filed by at least nine banks or contractors in the Polk County Register of Deeds office.
Drew Robinson, assistant district attorney for the 10th Judicial District – Polk, Bradley, McMinn and Monroe counties – said his office is looking into “possible criminality” in the situation.
“We have to show intent. Not just that the developer went broke,” he said. “Our investigator is looking at it.”
Lou Lentine, co-founder and managing partner of Ocoee Land Holdings LLC, and listed by the Tennessee Secretary of State’s Office as the registered agent for Ocoee Realty, Ocoee Mountain Homes and the Ocoee Mountain Club Homeowners Association, blames the contract builder who filed the first liens.
“We are not happy with this situation, caused by a vendor, who was fired from the job,” he said in an e-mail Saturday.
Lentine and Bill Michaels, a spokesman for Ocoee Mountain Club, said those first liens resulted in a freeze being placed on all the construction loans.
“There is over $220,000 in construction draws owed to Ocoee Mountain Homes which well covers the $140,000 in liens,” Lentine said in the e-mail.
He said the developer “has stepped in and hired a builder to assist in finishing the few homes tied up in this situation plus to award contracts to build the new homes currently under construction. I have also been brought in to assist with this situation.”
Paul Fetzner, whom Lentine said is the developer, could not be reached for comment. On legal documents in the Polk County Courthouse, Fetzner is listed as the attorney and president of Ocoee Land Holdings LLC.
The contractor Lentine blamed, framer and builder Greg Hampton, of Blue Ridge, Ga., tells a different story.
Hampton said the development fired the general contractor with whom he and the other contractors had worked. After that, he said, the trouble began, and he tried many times to work out differences with Lentine, Fetzner and other company representatives.
He said he finally told them he could do no more work for them until he was paid for previous work. When that still brought no payments, he said he did the only thing he could do: He filed liens against five homes totaling $70,000.
Only two of those liens were filed against homes that still had construction loans, so he questioned whether his liens could have frozen payments for all the contractors on all of the liens and homes.
“It’s my fault because they owe me money?” Hampton said. “I feel sorry for the homeowners. I hate it. They were taken advantage of, and we (subcontractors) were, too. It’s pitiful.”
Terry Pelfry, a countertop contractor and owner of Depot Granite & Hardwoods in Ellijay, Ga., has a similar story. He was unable to collect $8,000 that Ocoee Mountain Homes, the building arm of Ocoee Mountain Club, owed him.
“I know $8,000 is not huge, but it’s not something I can take out of my pocket. This is the first time anything like this has happened to me, and it’s changed the way we do business. We get our money up front now,” he said.
In the meantime, the Barretts and their neighbors, Steve and Terri Ford, live across the street from overgrown lots, many of which boast signs with owner names, and owner home towns. Almost all the hometowns are in Florida. A few list Georgia, Midwest or Northeast communities.
Florida in fact was where the development was advertised most heavily, with come-ons touting a clubhouse and a swimming pool.
That was a major selling point for Mrs. Ford, a Chicago cancer survivor who hoped to use the pool and clubhouse for exercise.
“The clubhouse was supposed to be finished in 2009,” she said. “It’s still just a hole in the ground.”
“I love my house,” she added. “But it’s not finished. Everything is 95 percent done. But I love the majesty of these mountains, and the weather is wonderful. You can feel God here.”
COMMUNITY CONCERN
Polk County Executive Mike Stinnett said the county will handle new subdivisions differently in the future by being stricter about how the development is overseen.
“These homeowners are really caught in the middle, and they have no idea what was going on. I really feel for them,” he said.
In the meantime, the county is taking steps to initiate its own form of lien against the development and Lentine.
On July 20, the Polk planning commission sent a letter to the Ocoee Mountain Club telling the operators they have 30 days to complete curbing and guttering and catch basins in the development to stop erosion. If the work is not done in that time, the county will call in a letter of credit the company holds at a Benton Bank, Stinnett said.
The $20,000 remaining in that credit account probably won’t pay for the rest of work that must be done, the county executive said. If doesn’t, the county likely will file liens against the remaining unsold lots in the development.
According to records in the Register of Deeds’ office, Ocoee Land Holdings filed a quitclaim deed in February for unsold properties to Land Discoveries LLC, a Florida company.
Michaels countered that the development accounts for almost all of the streets that are curbed and guttered in Polk County.
“We’ve been waiting for Stinnett to finish his term,” Michaels said. “The new electee has been more helpful.” Voters will decide on Thursday whether Democrat Hoyt Firestone or Republican David Dishman will be the new county executive.
Past and future
Lentine is no stranger to legal questions.
Also an inventor, Lentine has tangled with the Federal Trade Commission over alleged unfair or deceptive practices in marketing air cleaning products and ultrasonic/electromagnetic pest control devices.
“Lentek International Inc., Joseph Durek, a former Lentek principal, and Lou Lentine, a current principal … are prohibited from claiming that their MosquitoContro, PestContro and Sila Air Cleaning products are effective unless they have competent and reliable scientific evidence to support the claims,” according to a 2003 Federal Trade Commission news release.
Lentine said the FTC issue was settled with no penalty or fine.
“I believe receiving no fine states a lot for this situation,” he said.
He also said a bankruptcy he filed with Lentek “was more than seven years ago and has no relationship with Ocoee.”
He said Lentek has been reorganized and is a “thriving business.”
He called the Ocoee Mountain Club “a successful development during the worst economic environment in the real estate industry. … In the past two years over 230 homesites have been sold.”
The Barretts said they wish they had done more homework before embarking on their move to Tennessee. What has happened to them since they got here has left them scarred.
“We feel abused,” Mrs. Barrett said. “I think they thought they could take advantage of retirees. And we talk about this every day. It just hangs over us.”
Still, they hope the new home can be the dream they sought.
“I like the house, I like the location. I love the people and the area. I love looking out the back window in the mornings and seeing horses,” Mrs. Barrett said. “I just want to wake up in the morning and know that it’s all as it should be.”