by Douglas Hanks
The owner of the house in Kendale Lakes was 86 and living in a Miami Beach nursing home. Her legal caretaker, a lawyer working for the Guardianship Program of Dade County, decided it was time to sell the woman’s house and put the money toward her long-term care.
This wouldn’t be an ordinary real estate transaction.
State law sets special rules for guardianship sales, when property is being sold on behalf of a person declared incapacitated by the court system. A checklist posted on the Miami-Dade Circuit Court website shows the guardian must affirm a sale is an “arm’s-length transaction” and include a market analysis of the property to justify the proposed sales price, such as an appraisal. A judge must approve a sales contract for a purchaser to buy an incapacitated person’s property.
An arm’s-length transaction in business deals means the seller and buyer are independent of each other.
Miami-Dade investigators with the Inspector General’s Office are reviewing the Guardianship Program’s real estate transactions after a WLRN report raised questions about whether all buyers had access to homes offered for sale by the nonprofit.
In the sale of the 86-year-old’s former home, the appraisal filed with Miami-Dade Circuit Court showed the challenges in selling many properties that end up under the control of a guardian. Often neglected by someone in a deteriorating mental state, the homes can suffer from deferred maintenance, hoarding and filth.
“The appraiser noted multiple roof leaks, therefore it is assumed that the roof requires replacement,” appraiser David Troncoso wrote in the Nov. 18, 2021 report. “In addition, there is an excess of personal property to the extent that a normal observation of interior surfaces was unable to be conducted.”
Photos attached to the report show a kitchen with a pile of what looks like trash and grocery bags blocking the oven, and similar mounds of bags and boxes in the living area and covering beds and tables.
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| Express Homes sold the Kendale Lakes home on Southwest 138th Place for $695,000 in the summer of 2022 after renovations. It had purchased the property from the Guardianship Program for $430,000 in January 2022. The Multiple Listing Service shows the house was not listed when the Guardianship Program sold it, but was listed once renovated by Express Homes. |
State rules don’t require the properties be listed ahead of a sale by a court-appointed guardian. A search of the Miami Multiple Listing Service shows the house wasn’t advertised as for sale to the general public ahead of the judge approving a $430,000 sale to Express Homes. The deal closed in January 2022.
It’s not known if other offers were received. A Miami Herald review of court records shows that sometimes all offers are filed with the Circuit Court, and sometimes only the one up for approval as a sale gets put in the file. The Express Homes $430,000 offer matched the appraised value submitted by Troncoso.
Express has been a repeat buyer of properties from the Guardianship Program, a nonprofit that uses state and county funds to pay for a staff managing financial and personal affairs for more than 1,000 people. The organization says fewer than 5% of their cases involve real estate sales.
In the more than a dozen Express purchases, the company typically follows the real estate investor model of purchasing a rundown house, renovating it and then selling it quickly at a higher value.
On May 27, 2022, about three months after the Guardianship Program purchase closed, Express listed the gutted and refurbished property for sale at $699,000. An online listing boasted of a renovated split-level home with a “new roof, updated electrical and plumbing...new flooring throughout, newly designed bathrooms, and new modern driveway....Hurry, this won’t last. Bring offers!!”
It sold a month later for close to the listing price, at $695,000.
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Here’s a look at how the Guardianship Program sells real estate in Miami-Dade
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