COLUMBIA, S.C. — Six assisted living facilities in the state face foreclosure.
It involves Carolina Gardens locations, three of which are in the Midlands.
January 16, KeyBank filed a nearly 600-page lawsuit in Horry County looking to foreclose on the following properties:
- Carolina Gardens at Conway
- Carolina Gardens at Kathwood
- Carolina Gardens at Laurens
- Carolina Gardens at Lexington
- Carolina Gardens at West Columbia
- Carolina Gardens at York
In the lawsuit, it says the bank loaned roughly $70 million ($69,340,000) to the owners of these facilities in August 2015 so they could buy the properties.
In June 2019, the bank says the owners were not paying back the loan and owed more than $65 million ($65,228,945.42).
Seven months later, the KeyBank filed to foreclose on the properties.
"We work directly with the owners, which is the SGS, [LLC], and they have hired and retained us to oversee the communities," said Sevy Petras Wells, CEO & Co-Founder of Priority Life Care.
Priority Life Care is a third party manager in charge of overseeing day-to-day operations at these Carolina Gardens locations. They're in charge of staff, and make sure residents needs to run the communities are met.
Wells assures nothing will change during this process.
"Nothing is going to change for them. They are going to continue to be supported. Nothing is going to change with their home," said Wells. "We've been working and talking directly to KeyBank. They have been ensuring that we have the funds that we need to make sure the different vendors are being paid, and that there's not any disruption to any of their services and that the staff is not going to have any concerns about their pay during this time as well."
In a statement, a spokesperson for KeyBank tells us:
"Key understands that the residents of these communities may have concerns regarding the legal proceedings, however, we cannot discuss the details of client agreements or negotiations for privacy and legal reasons. Our top priority is the residents, and we are focused on working to ensure that the assisted living facilities continue to operate without disruption while we work through the situation."
Priority Life Care is also preparing to host community meetings in the near future.
In the meantime, they sent a letter to residents saying in part,
"If anyone has any concerns or questions, please do not hesitate to contact your Executive Director as well as your PLC representative. We appreciate your understanding during this time and apologize for the confusion as well as any disruption it may have caused you or your loved ones."
The owners of the locations and KeyBank are working to come up with a solution.
This is a developing story. Stick with News 19 for the latest updates.