LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — The owners of a Lexington apartment complex are on the hook with the city for more than $56,000. As city officials wait for a pending sale, tenants living there say they are sick of waiting for help.
The Issue
There's a welcome home sign on the lawn at Bourbon Court Apartments, but at least for Keith, who asked to hide his identity out of fear of retaliation, his apartment doesn't feel welcoming or homey at all.
"Just see how the residents is living over here," said Keith.
Inside his apartment, Keith says he doesn't use the water and showers at a family member's home.
"If I cut the water on, it's gone completely drip," he said.
There was a hole in the wall outside his apartment that hadn't been fixed.
"It was all on the ground. I had to clean it up because I didn't want my children to walk through it," said Keith.
LEX 18 could see hanging wires, gutters, unlocked units, trash, broken windows on the property. With each visit to the property, LEX 18 also witnessed code enforcement at different buildings.
Vicky Carpenter's apartment was condemned on one of those visits. The senior citizen had no gas for weeks.
"They were supposed to have somebody fix it," said Carpenter. "I'm glad I'm moving."
The Owners
A sign on the locked leasing office said to email the property manager with Hayes Gibson Property Service. They did not return our calls or email.
A mortgage and deed for the property lists CC Bourbon LLC as the owner of multiple buildings on Augusta Court and Raleigh Road.
According to the secretary of state, a member of the LLC and registered agent has an address in Florida.
The Orange County Florida Property Appraiser's Office confirms the home was purchased for more than $2.5 million.
We reached out to the owner and have not received a response.
The City
When we looked closer at code enforcement violations, we found out there have been hundreds since CC Bourbon LLC purchased the property in 2020.
There were 323 housing violations totaling more than $15,000 just in this year.
The owner has been trying to sell the property for more than $11 million since at least April of 2022 according to court records.
Violations ramped up in August of 2022 around the same time the new buyers were set to pay their final earnest money deposit before the sale was about to close.
Code enforcement director, Alex Olszowy says owners owe at least $56,000 in unpaid liens.
Their department has held off on issuing citations in good faith because they were told by the owner's attorney that there would be a sale by the end of the month.
Olszowy says they put a pause on a foreclosure case to allow the sale of the property to proceed and will re-evaluate at that time.
The mayor's office says they want to work with the new owners to bring the place into compliance and fix violations.
After pushing the city to explain why they are waiting, we received this statement Monday from Housing Commissioner Charlie Lanter:
The best thing that can happen is for Bourbon Court Apartments to get new ownership that will be responsible and maintain the property. The city has held off on foreclosure and forcing a sale in order to prevent the pending sale from falling through. As mentioned previously, should there not be a sale by the end of April, it is our intent to proceed with foreclosure. Throughout this process, the Division of Code Enforcement has continued to cite the property and condemn units, as appropriate, to prevent the owner from leasing unfit, unsafe units to new tenants. We look forward to working with a new owner, and would even entertain working with that owner to utilize Affordable Housing funds to remodel the property to acceptable conditions.
Meanwhile, Keith says he's just hoping help comes soon.
"I'm stuck all the way in the middle with no plan," said Keith. "I don't feel safe at all but I have to just live through it and see what else I can do for myself and try to make it a way out."
