Courts Prevent Bank from Foreclosing on Strait Gate Owned Property

Last week Hudson Valley Bank filed a motion with the bankruptcy court to lift a stay of proceeding and allow them to foreclose on the eight-acre parcel of land located at 380 Mamaroneck Ave. in Harrison.

The land is owned by Mamaroneck's Strait Gate Church, who filed bankruptcy in October of last year.

Straight Gate responded by asking the court to allow them to retain the property, and give them the right to take it out of the bankruptcy stay order to place it on the market themselves.

The judge has now made a ruling that supports the church's retention of their rights in the property and allows the church to move forward with their own marketing of the land.

Strait Gate has abandoned its pre-bankruptcy plan to develop the land into a seven home housing development and will retain a broker to sell the properties as individual vacant land parcels instead.

 The judge said he would give the church a reasonable time to do that and that all creditors, including the bank, would be better served with auction sales conducted under the auspices of the court, rather than a forced sale conducted by the bank.

The church will shortly be submitting papers to the court for the retention of a real estate broker. The broker must be approved by the bankruptcy court before marketing of the land parcels can be commenced.

There is already one offer on one of the church-owned parcels.

 It remains to be seen how the church will divide the acreage and the number of parcels it will determine as the most effective means of marketing the unimproved land.