A Hispanic will sue the Miami attorney because she says her husband offered to buy the house below market value and take over the debt, but he didn’t pay it.
A Miami resident claims he was tricked into selling his family’s home under false pretences. Apparently the house had several code violations.
He contacted the Miami City Attorney for help, but says the woman referred him to her husband.
The person who will present the lawsuit is called José Álvarez, of Cuban origin. Her lawyers told us that the Miami lawyer’s husband suggested she sell the property because paying the fines she had would cost her thousands and thousands of dollars.
“I felt pain because I lost the house and I can’t do anything,” says Álvarez.
José says he sold the property in good faith, and still today the situation saddens him because of the memories he left behind in the house.
A deed certifies that “express homes” bought the house from José Álvarez. In sunbiz, said company appears associated with the name of Carlos Morales, husband of the Miami city attorney.
“I didn’t know how much he owed me, nor did he tell me how much,” Álvarez says.
According to the lawsuit, Morales and Express Home took advantage of their political connections in Miami to obtain a penalty waiver for the home, remodel it and then sell it, but allegedly failed to pay permits to remodel the rest of the home.
“He changed the kitchen, the bathrooms, the floors, he repainted the exterior, he removed the bush that was in front of the house and all those things need a permit from the city,” explains the lawyer from Álvarez.
The attorneys explained that at the July 25, 2018 code enforcement meeting, that $271,250 debt was canceled in a decision that took just over a minute.
“In other words, I’m not paying a single dollar out of that 270,000.”
On August 20, 2018, Express Homes sold the property for $370,000, $165,000 more than it had bought from Mr. Álvarez.
Asked about this, Victoria Méndez, a lawyer for the city of Miami, responded with a detailed statement. This is part of this answer:
“It saddens me that the plaintiffs and related attorneys in Fuller v. Carollo and Madroom v. City of Miami, have engineered this third lawsuit and misled a plaintiff into continuing to harass me and my family. “
When we asked the plaintiffs’ attorneys about the “Madrrom” case, to which the Miami attorney refers, they said they didn’t know what it was about.