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Article Courtesy of The Orlando Sentinel
By Stephen Hudak
Published November 11 , 2016
The next time Westgate Resorts squares off with the widow
who won't sell her little vacation condo to the time-share giant, they'll
probably be in court.
"Does nobody want a solution?" asked Yvette Rodriguez Brown, a special
magistrate who presided over a series of code-enforcement hearings involving
the 1,125-square-foot townhouse on Turkey Lake Road.
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"I've been sitting
here listening to this," she said. "I feel like you're in a
sandbox and you guys are both playing like children and
nobody's willing to give in."
Brown wasn't asked to arbitrate the stalemate between
82-year-old Julieta Corredor and the time-share company
owned by David Siegel, one of Florida's richest men, but she
offered her view on their dispute after listening to two
hours of griping by their lawyers.
The magistrate instead upheld three code violations, two
handed out to Central Florida Investment Inc., Westgate's
parent company, and the other to the widow, who was cited
for the unsafe condition of her townhouse.
Westgate was found to have violated the county code by
allowing a contractor without a permit to demolish property
around Corredor's town house and for accidentally damaging
an exterior wall of her condo
William Corredor, the widow's son, said
Westgate's actions caused the problems and he doubts that
any of it was accidental as the company claims.. |
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Neither money nor bulldozers have loosened the grip
an Orlando vacation home as on the Corredor family. Bought by their
mother and late father 30 years ago, the two-story townhouse near
Sea World has served as the family's vacation base for decades, a
hub to entertain kids and grandkids at theme parks.
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"It's how they operate," he said.
The magistrate ordered Westgate to fix the exterior wall and other
structural damage the bulldozer caused to the town house by Dec. 22, while
the Corredor family must bring the interior up to code by Jan. 6.
A fine of $250 a day could be assessed if either misses deadline.
Westgate lawyer Thu Pham, an attorney with Greenspoon Marder, said the
company has tried to negotiate with the Corredors, but she accused the
family of holding Westgate hostage in hopes of winning a financial windfall.
She said the company has offered the family a choice of $150,000 for its
parcel or a replacement time-share unit in another Westgate property.
"That's not the complete picture," said the Corredors' lawyer, Brent Siegel,
no relation to the Westgate CEO.
While the dispute goes on, Westgate is building around the widow's vacation
home, for which she and her late husband paid $154,000 in 1986.
The eight-story tower is halfway done and blocks the widow's view of a lake.
If the Corredors refuse to sell, their condo could be become an American
version of a "nail house," a label coined in China by frustrated developers
to describe holdouts who can't be hammered into giving up their land.
The family has embraced a comparison to Edith Macefield, an 85-year-old
Seattle woman who refused a reported $1 million to give up her farmhouse for
a commercial development that was then built around her.
Her house was used to promote Disney's animated film "Up."
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