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Article Courtesy of The Orlando Sentinel
By Stephen Hudack
Published December 23, 2017
The widow who resisted timeshare giant Westgate Resorts’
repeated offers for her small vacation condo finally gave in for $1.5
million.
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According to records filed this week with the Orange
County comptrollers’ office, Westgate Lakes LLC paid South
Florida widow Julieta Meija de Corredor about 10 times what
she and her late husband paid for their two-bedroom,
two-bathroom condo 32 years ago.
The widow’s stubbornness led to a dispute with Westgate that
held up the company’s efforts to build a pair of high-rise
timeshare towers. Company officials said the stalemate cost
them millions.
The parties announced a resolution to the property dispute
two months ago, but neither side could discuss the sale
price or other details because of a confidentiality clause
in the agreement.
Neither offered comment today.
Westgate Lakes and Westgate Resorts are part of the same
Orange County-based holding company, Central Florida
Investments Inc., headed by timeshare mogul David A. Siegel.
The sale price was calculated by the Orlando Sentinel from
tax stamps levied on public documents transferring the
property to Westgate. The comptroller’s office confirmed the
newspaper’s computations. |
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Covered by a green shroud, Julieta Meija de
Corredor's damaged townhouse is dwarfed by Westgate Resorts' new
timeshare tower on Turkey Lake Road in this photo on Sunday, Aug.
13, 2017. Westgate paid $1.5 million for the property, records show.
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The widow, 83, and Westgate, which first inquired about
buying her 1,124-square-foot unit in 2004, had been at odds since January
2015, when the company filed a development application for the towers with
Orange County. The company mistakenly represented that it owned all parcels
in the Sand Lake Village Condominium complex, including the widow’s tiny
one.
In fact, it owned all but hers.
Westgate intended to put a pair of eight-story timeshare
towers on the site, which sits between Big Sand Lake and Interstate 4.
Each cost about $20 million.
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The towers would be
located adjacent to another Westgate timeshare property and
minutes from the tourist corridor, which includes the Orange
County Convention Center, Orlando Eye and SeaWorld Orlando.
The widow complained to the county in April 2016 that a
Westgate contractor on a bulldozer carved off a section of
her condo while the worker was clearing the site for the
tower project.
Westgate, through its lawyers and executives, bickered with
the widow, represented by her sons and Gainesville attorney
Brent Siegel, who is no relation to David Siegel.
The Corredors never publicly revealed an asking price, but
it apparently was so high that David Siegel, who is trying
to build a personal residence with 21 bedrooms, suggested
they were being greedy.
“We offered them twice what the thing was worth,” he said.
Other Westgate officials said they gave the widow and her
family options. Westgate offered to rebuild the Corredors’
unit at the same or a new location and provide $50,000 in
furnishings; offered to buy the condo for $150,000; or swap
a newer unit in a different building for the Corredor’s
uninhabitable condo. |
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Construction continues on Westgate Resorts tower
which looms behind the remains of Julieta Mejia de Corredor's
condominum near the Orange County Convention Center.
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The Corredors said no, no and no.
William and Carlos Corredor, the widow’s adult sons, said they felt bullied
by Westgate, which reconfigured its building plans and erected a tower that
loomed over the widow’s tiny condo.
The Orange County property appraiser listed the condo’s assessed value
earlier this year at about $30,000. The widow and her late husband paid
$154,000 in 1985 for their vacation place.
An owner of a neighboring unit sold out to Westgate in 2015 for $145,000.
Another sold her condo to the company in 2002 for $65,000.
Others fell into foreclosure and were snapped up cheaper. |
