Lender and Special Servicer – $126 Million Mortgage on Miami’s Shore Club Hotel
Represented the lender and mortgage servicer in litigation against a hotel developer filed in Nassau County Supreme Court and in the Appellate Division, Second Department. The underlying dispute involved an action filed by our clients in Florida seeking to foreclose the $126 million mortgage on the Shore Club Hotel in Miami, and the hotel developer's ultimately unsuccessful attempts to derail that action. Having slipped a purchase option into a hotel tenant's lease, which purported to convey to the tenant a right to purchase the mortgage loan at fair market value, the developer then "purchased" the option from the tenant and sought to enforce that option in the Florida foreclosure action. On the eve of an expected adverse ruling in Florida, the developer brought its claim to Nassau County, where the trial court granted a preliminary injunction, effectively preventing our clients from foreclosing the mortgage. We filed an appeal and obtained a reversal, resulting in the dismissal of the Nassau County action. Leave to appeal was denied by New York's Court of Appeals.