Thread: FL-Bank Foreclosure on Buyer and Sellers Stand to Lose

Johnson faces foreclosure
Jeff Testerman, Times Staff Writer

Published Wednesday, April 15, 2009

TAMPA — Sunshine State Savings has filed a lawsuit to foreclose the $400,000 loan Buddy Johnson used to buy a 20-acre tract and small home in Plant City two years ago.

The suit says Johnson has missed all five of his $2,728-a-month payments on the mortgage since November, the month he lost his re-election bid for supervisor of elections. He owes $394,085, plus interest, late charges and attorneys fees.

But it's the elderly couple who sold Johnson the property who stand to lose big.

The mortgaged property off Thonotosassa Road was the longtime family homestead of Cecil Bass, 80, and Nita Bass, 78, before they sold it to Johnson in March 2007 and loaned him $520,000 to complete the purchase. They say Johnson told them his payments would provide better investment income than cash they could get at closing for a savings account.

Now, as Johnson has stopped paying on the Bass loan and the bank has begun foreclosure, the Basses face the loss of their $520,000 retirement nest egg. While they did receive about $280,000 at closing, they have little chance of reclaiming the property — which their family has held since the '30s — because the bank is first in line to take the land.

"This is a sad development," said Morgan W. Streetman, a Tampa attorney representing the Basses. "This was their family homestead, and now they are in jeopardy of losing their property and all the money — $520,000 that they really counted on.

"The way Buddy played it, there was safety in this venture and in the loan they gave him, but it doesn't look that way now. What could happen is the bank will end up with the property."

The Basses sued Johnson over the transaction in January, alleging that he committed fraud by secretly altering the terms of the sales contract in a conspiracy involving Sunshine State Savings and a local title company.

Using the corporate name Fort Bully East LLC, Johnson bought the property for $800,000. He signed a contract saying he would finance $760,000 of it, with $240,000 from Sunshine State Savings. Instead, Johnson negotiated a $400,000 loan from the bank but never disclosed that to the Basses, the couple's suit says.

At closing on the $800,000 purchase, Johnson signed for two loans totaling $920,000 and walked away with $158,177 in cash "for his own personal benefit," according to the lawsuit.

When the loans were made, Sunshine State Savings's president, Floyd Hall, was the treasurer of Johnson's re-election campaign, and Johnson's campaign account was at Hall's bank.

After the Times raised conflict-of-interest questions about Hall's roles in the real estate financing a year ago, Hall resigned as campaign treasurer and Johnson moved his campaign account.

In the foreclosure action filed April 1, Sunshine State Savings named both Johnson and his company as defendants because he signed a form personally guaranteeing the $400,000 loan.

The FBI is investigating the transaction. In February, agents contacted Plant City appraiser Jack T. Gibbs, who performed the appraisal on the Thonotosassa property when Johnson sought financing from Sunshine State.

The FBI also is investigating money matters involving the Hillsborough elections office while Johnson was supervisor. Agents are looking into how he illegally overspent his budget last year by almost $1 million, as well as whether he spent tax dollars earmarked for "voter education" to promote his re-election campaign.

The Sunshine State suit is the second recent foreclosure action against Johnson. In January, a foreclosure judgment of $415,878 was entered against him after he stopped making payments on a luxury condo he purchased in downtown Sarasota in 2006.

The loans used to buy the Sarasota condo and the loans to purchase the Bass property brought Johnson's debt to $1.6 million when his election job's salary and stipend as director of a restaurant holding company totaled about $142,000 a year.

After taking title to the Bass property, Johnson's stated plans for it kept changing. Initially, he said he intended to develop the land. He platted it and renamed the acreage Oak Creek Estates.

Asked if being a developer might interfere with his job as elections chief, Johnson said he had no plans to develop the land. He said his only wish was that his three children might build homes there, next to his own.

Next, Johnson said he had dedicated the land to agricultural use. He utilized a $20-a-year lease with a cow exhibitor to win a "greenbelt" tax exemption that reduced the taxable value of the property by more than $560,000.

Finally, Johnson put the land on the market, offering it for "exclusive residences" in a deed-restricted subdivision.

Johnson's agricultural exemption lowered his 2008 property taxes from about $14,300 to about $3,500. He has not paid the taxes, which became delinquent April 1. If the bank completes the foreclosure, it likely would have to pay the back taxes.

Jeff Testerman can be reached at testerman@sptimes.com or (813) 226-3422.



Tale of 20 acres

Buddy Johnson approaches retirees Cecil and Nita Bass, longtime friends of the Johnson family, about buying their property in Plant City. The purchase price: $800,000. Johnson signs a contract saying he will put up $40,000 cash, get a first mortgage from a bank for $240,000 and a second mortgage from the Basses for $520,000.

March 2007: The Basses say Johnson altered the contract without telling them. Instead of a bank loan of $240,000, he borrows $400,000 from Sunshine State Savings. Instead of putting down $40,000 cash, he walks away with $158,177 cash.

Fall 2008: Johnson begins missing payments to the Basses, they say.

November 2008: Johnson stops making his $2,728-a-month payments to Sunshine State Savings, the bank says.

January 2009: The Basses sue Johnson, the bank and the title company, saying Johnson defrauded them by changing the sales contract and not telling them.

April 2009: The bank sues Johnson to foreclose on the $400,000 loan. Because the bank is first in line to get the property, the attorney for the Basses said the elderly couple likely will end up with only $280,000 for their $800,000 property, a loss of $520,000 to their nest egg.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/politic...icle992628.ece

Man, talk about getting the shaft. How can one even begin to think of all the different ways one can get screwed over....with the help of changing rules and who knows what else. I feel bad for these people. Then to think with all that land and home, I still pay more in property taxes than they do!