Records: Westgate pays $1.5M for condo

The widow who resisted timeshare giant Westgate Resorts’ repeated offers for her small vacation condo finally gave in for $1.5 million.

According to records filed this week with the Orange County comptrollers’ office, Westgate Lakes LLC paid South Florida widow Julieta Meija de Corredor about 10 times what she and her late husband paid for their twobedroom, two-bathroom condo 32 years ago.

The widow’s stubbornness led to a dispute with Westgate that held up the company’s efforts to build a pair of high-rise timeshare towers. Company officials said the stalemate cost them millions.

The parties announced a resolution to the property dispute two months ago, but neither side could discuss the sale price or other details because of a confidentiality clause in the agreement.

Neither offered comment

Westgate Lakes and Westgate Resorts are part of the same Orange County-based holding company, Central Florida Investments Inc., headed by timeshare mogul David A. Siegel.

The sale price was calculated by the Orlando Sentinel from tax stamps levied on public documents transferring the property to Westgate. The comptroller’s office confirmed the newspaper’s computations.

The widow, 83, and Westgate, which first inquired about buying her 1,124-square-foot unit in 2004, had been at odds since January 2015, when the company filed a development application for the towers with Orange County. The company mistakenly represented that it owned all parcels in the Sand Lake Village Condominium complex, including the widow’s tiny one. In fact, it owned all but hers. Westgate intended to put a pair of eight-story timeshare towers on the site, which sits between Big Sand Lake and Interstate 4. Each cost about $20 million. The towers would be located adjacent to another Westgate timeshare property and minutes from the tourist corridor, which includes the Orange County Convention Center, Orlando Eye and SeaWorld Orlando.

The widow complained to the county in April 2016 that a Westgate contractor on a bulldozer carved off a section of her condo while the worker was clearing the site for the tower project.

Westgate, through its lawyers and executives, bickered with the widow, represented by her sons and Gainesville attorney Brent Siegel, who is no relation to David Siegel.

The Corredors never publicly revealed an asking price, but it apparently was so high that David Siegel, who is trying to build a personal residence with 21 bedrooms, suggested they were being greedy.

“We offered them twice what the thing was worth,” he said.

Other Westgate officials said they gave the widow and her family options. Westgate offered to rebuild the Corredors’ unit at the same or a new location and provide $50,000 in furnishings; offered to buy the condo for $150,000; or swap a newer unit in a different building for the Corredor’s uninhabitable condo.

The Corredors said no, no and today.