Homeowners at the Glades Springs Village have won a judgment of at least $6.6 million against a development company headed by Gov. Jim Justice.
Raleigh Circuit Judge Robert Burnside filed the order last week.
At its base was a dispute over whether Justice Holdings, one of dozens of companies owned by the governor and his family, should have been paying the same property assessments as other homeowners.
Glade Springs is a resort owned by Justice’s family but also a planned community. Common properties including roads, the lake and the golf courses, are the property of the homeowners association.
The conflict evolved as Glade Springs homeowners ousted a Justice-backed governing board and put in their own. The new homeowners board continued to take issue with whether Justice Holdings owed assessments to maintain those common properties just like everybody else.
“The essence of it is that since the elected board took over we have always wanted everyone, all the property owners here, to pay their fair share,” said Rick Lay, president of the board of directors for the Glade Springs Village Property Owners Association.
“This court order has made it very clear that everyone is expected to pay their fair share.”
Justice Holdings, represented by Charleston attorney Shawn George, has indicated a possible appeal.
Jim Justice became the lead investor at the Glade Springs resort near Beckley years before his 2016 election as West Virginia’s governor. Now Justice corporate executives James Miller and Stephen Ball are listed as the top representatives for Justice Holdings, along with the governor’s grown children, Jay and Jill Justice.
Justice and his family acquired the lead development role in the golf resort community and its thousands of acres in 2010. Glade Springs has 750 private residences.
What Justice gained that year was the position of “declarant,” a development role in planned communities that comes with special rights.
The homeowners association went to court over a range of issues, but a big one was whether Justice’s company owed assessments on lots under the family’s control.
Justice Holdings contended that many of those were not lots subject to a property owners’ covenant or that they were no longer owned by the company.
Judge Burnside ruled that the homeowners association is entitled to $6,073,692 for lots that Justice Holdings owned beginning in October 2010 to this past July 1.
“The documentary evidence shows that Justice Holdings acquired, owned and still owns hundreds of lots within Glade Springs Village, The Farms and Phase I subject to the covenant” to pay the annual assessment, according to the order signed by the judge.
Besides that, the property owners may collect on the unpaid assessments at a rate of 10 percent a year, starting at the date of each year’s delinquency. The exact amount will be addressed in a separate court order.
The judge also ruled that Justice Holdings owes $545,000 for payments it received from the property owners association when the developer controlled the board of directors.
And the property owners association is entitled to an award of costs and attorneys fees, another matter for a separate, upcoming court order.
Lay acknowledged there could still be further developments in the court system but said the property owners association intends to collect.
“I think it establishes beyond any doubt that all property owners are expected to pay their fair share, to pay their monthly assessments, which have been established and clearly defined,” he said.
“Those assessments that are paid are used to fund our maintenance, our golf courses, our security, upkeep of the common property and all the other amenities afforded to our property owners here.”