Hundreds of Glade Springs Resort lots owned by the family of Senator Jim Justice were on the edge of a forced auction just weeks ago.
Now the state Supreme Court will take a closer look at the dispute — with oral arguments during the court’s next term, which begins in January and runs through June. No specific date has been set so far.
The court issued its order on Friday.
Several hundred lots owned by Justice Holdings had been scheduled for foreclosure sale at 9 a.m. Oct. 29, according to a legal notice in the Beckley Register-Herald newspaper. Justice Holdings is a company owned by the family of Senator Justice, R-W.Va.
The now-delayed sale was prompted by a longstanding dispute over homeowners fees at Glade Springs.
A financial dispute between the Justice family business and Glade Springs Village Property Owners Association goes back years.
Jim Justice became the lead investor at the Glade Springs resort near Beckley several years before his 2016 election as West Virginia’s governor and now senator.
Now Justice corporate executives James Miller and Stephen Ball are listed as the top representatives for Justice Holdings, along with the senator’s son and daughter, Jay and Jill Justice.
Glade Springs is a resort, but it is also a planned community. Common properties including roads, the lake and the golf courses, are the property of the homeowners association.
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.
The homeowners board has taken issue with whether Justice Holdings owed assessments to maintain common properties just like everybody else, and they have pursued the matter in court.
Lawyers for Justice Holdings have disputed in court whether the lots can legally be sold at a foreclosure sale.
Generally, Justice Holdings disputes the fee assessments and the resulting liens by arguing that the real estate was never properly incorporated into the Glade Springs Village common interest community.
Raleigh Circuit Judge Todd Kirby, a former Republican state delegate, issued a final order Dec. 5 of last year, directing a special commissioner to sell hundreds of parcels of real property owned by Justice Holdings to satisfy the assessment liens claimed by the Glade Springs Property Owners Association.
This past June 20, lawyers for Justice Holdings filed a petition for writ of prohibition with the Supreme Court, asking for a review of whether the county court exceeded its authority — and whether the lower court made the decision on the correct basis of law.
“Specifically, the Circuit Court has no authority to order the sale of Petitioner’s real estate to satisfy the claimed assessment liens because the subject real estate was never lawfully added to the common interest community,” wrote the lawyers for Justice Holdings.
That is the main question currently before the appeals court.
The order filed by the Supreme Court on Friday directs the attorneys for the Glade Springs property owners association to show cause why Justice Holdings should not be awarded the writ of prohibition.