The developer of a proposed Port Chester residential-retail complex is challenging an $11 million foreclosure action that he claims was filed in the wrong place.
Michael Caridi says in a Dec. 22 affidavit that a foreclosure suit brought by The Galinn Fund is defective because it was filed in Suffolk County Supreme Court and not in Westchester.
“I have come to learn that this action cannot be maintained as against the Port Chester properties,” he stated, “as an action to foreclose upon real property must be maintained in the county where the properties are located.”
Caridi has proposed The Complex at Port Chester, a $140 million, 12-story structure with apartments, a hotel and retail space near the village train station.
The Galinn Fund, an Elmsford firm operated by George Galgano and David Linn, began loaning funds for the project in 2017, according to Westchester County property records.
In February 2023, Caridi and his wife, Jill, personally guaranteed a new, consolidated $11.25 million mortgage.
The new mortgage was secured by four parcels on South Main and Broadway where The Complex at Port Chester is proposed, and by the couple’s vacation home in Bridgehampton, Suffolk County, and their house in Greenwich, Connecticut.
The project corporation was required to pay monthly interest-only payments of $112,500 beginning last April 1, and then the entire loan principle on Aug. 1.
According to Galinn, no payment was made on Aug. 1. A week later the firm sued the corporation and the Caridis in Suffolk Supreme Court.
At that point, according to the complaint, Galinn was owed $10.65 million plus default interest of 24% per annum.
Galinn has asked the Suffolk court to issue a summary judgment and begin a foreclosure proceeding against the Bridgehampton and Port Chester properties and the Caridi’s home in Greenwich.
Michael Caridi has cried foul.
He says the mortgage required Galinn to serve 10 Day Default Notices to him, his wife and the corporation, by mail to his Greenwich home. He claims that never happened.
What’s more, he says New York law requires a foreclosure action to be filed in the county where the property is located. Only the vacation house is in Suffolk County, and that court also has no jurisdiction for a foreclosure on the Caridi’s real estate in Greenwich, Connecticut.
Therefore, Caridi’s attorney, Anthony J. Auciello states in a Dec. 22 filing, Galinn’s application for summary judgment “must be denied as this whole action is procedurally defective.”
