VOL. 125 | NO. 135 | Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Miller Amasses More Foreclosures
By Eric Smith
More foreclosures have piled up against developer and homebuilder David Miller, who filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in May.
On Tuesday, 10 successor trustee’s sale notices appeared in The Daily News and also at The Daily News Online, www.memphisdailynews.com, for 13 lots and a parcel of land that Miller owns through his eponymous company David Miller LLC.
Miller defaulted on eight construction loans and two deeds of trust totaling $10.8 million through BancorpSouth Bank, which appointed Douglas M. Alrutz of Wyatt, Tarrant & Combs LLP as successor trustee in the matter.
The properties include: four lots in Rialto Square Subdivision; one in Houston Levee Trails Planned Development; three in Fletcher Hollow PD; two in Morning Woods PD; one in Carlyle Place PD; and two in Waverly Plantation II PD.
The loan with the highest value was a $6.2 million trust deed for 35.57 acres along West New Brunswick Road in Bartlett.
The lots and land will be sold on the Shelby County Courthouse steps Aug. 5 at noon.
It is the latest in a series of problems for Miller, whose spring bankruptcy filing totaled $58 million and followed other foreclosures on lots and land he owned.
Late last year the Bank of Bartlett bought back 86.63 acres along Latting Road in unincorporated northeastern Shelby County in a successor trustee’s deed following a foreclosure against Miller.
The bank on Dec. 31 paid $2.5 million for the land from successor trustee Alrutz on the steps of the Shelby County Courthouse. The parcel is in the Oaklawn Estates Planned Development, a 226.76-acre subdivision that was platted for 176 lots.
David Miller LLC defaulted on a $5 million loan through Bank of Bartlett dated April 1, 2005. Miller received the land in an April 1, 2005, quitclaim deed from Latting Road Partners LLC, of whom Miller served as chief manager, according to the public record.
Also last year, Renasant Bank bought back 11 lots in the Highland Point Subdivision in unincorporated Shelby County from developer Latting Road Partners LLC following a foreclosure.
The bank bought the parcels for a combined $1 million in a substitute trustee’s deed, acquiring the properties on the steps of the Shelby County Courthouse from trustee Paul Royal of the law firm Crislip, Philip and Associates.
Though the sale closed in July, it wasn’t recorded by the Shelby County Register of Deeds until December. The bank foreclosed on the parcels during the summer.
The previous owner, Latting Road Partners, had defaulted on a $3.1 million construction loan through Renasant dated Feb. 18, 2005. That loan was modified and extended in June 2006, tacking on another $438,000. Miller signed the original trust deed as chief manager of Latting Road Partners.
The 11 parcels are part of Highland Point Subdivision, which is a resubdivision of Wilderwood Estates near Cordova. The subdivision includes 83 lots on 34.27 acres. It sits east of Berryhill Road south of Grove Road.