A U.S. District Court judge in Miami granted permission Thursday for the court-appointed receiver in charge of Jay Peak Resort to close on a deal to sell a condominium unit at the resort today.
It marks the first court-ordered sale of assets in the Northeast Kingdom Economic Development Initiative including Jay Peak and QBurke resorts since they were taken over by a court-appointed receiver two weeks ago.
Jay Peak owners Bill Stenger and Ariel Quiros are facing a lawsuit by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission over allegations that Stenger facilitated Quiros’s misuse of $200 million of EB-5 foreign investments and fraud involving $50 million. The properties are under court control, managed by the court-appointed receiver Michael Goldberg, a Florida attorney.
In an order handed down Thursday, U.S. District Court Judge Darrin P. Gayles in the Southern District of Florida gave Goldberg permission to sell Unit 314 at 268 North Village Road in Phase 1 of Jay Peak Village at the resort in Jay.
The official closing on the property is scheduled for today for a sale price of $520,000, court records show.
Goldberg, in an emergency motion filed with the court Wednesday, said that buyer Pamela Curtis entered into a purchase and sale agreement with Jay Peak Inc. on March 20 to buy the condo for $520,000.
Curtis has already deposited $10,000 toward the purchase price, Goldberg told the judge.
Goldberg said Curtis is an independent buyer unrelated to the Jay Peak properties under his receivership.
“Based on his business judgment and information provided by his professionals, the receiver believes the purchase price remaining to be paid under the purchase and sale agreement is a fair price considering the prevailing real estate market,” Goldberg wrote.
The sale is equitable and in the best interests of the receivership estates, he added.
Goldberg noted that the agreement was reached before April 12 when the SEC lawsuit was filed and before the judge put the Jay Peak properties into receivership under Goldberg’s control. Goldberg’s responsibility is to manage the assets profitably and sell them over time to pay creditors and investors.
The agreement “is still a valid contract and should be enforced,” he wrote.
Receiverships do not take away the rights of the other parties that get involved in deals with a party that is in trouble with the courts, he noted.
He asked, and the judge agreed, to waive the usual requirement for three disinterested persons to appraise the property before the deal. The intent of that kind of appraisal is to make sure that the receiver does not sell property that is less than two-thirds of the appraised value, Goldberg wrote.