Bank again pushes judge to foreclose on Dorworth’s Heathrow mansion [The Orlando Sentinel, Fla.]

Dec. 23--SANFORD -The bank holding the $1.5 million mortgage on the Heathrow mansion of future Florida House Speaker Chris Dorworth is pushing again to take it away from him.

The Bank of New York Trust Company N.A. sued him and his now-estranged wife in 2008, saying they had failed for months to make their $9,700-a-month mortgage payment.

After years of delays, the bank on Monday asked a judge to enter a summary judgment -- a formal finding that Dorworth is in default. It's the next step toward selling it at a courthouse auction.

The debt has now grown to $1.88 million, according to an affidavit filed by the bank. The couple bought it in 2005 for $1.2 million. The Seminole County property appraiser puts its current market value at $897,000.

Dorworth's attorney, Damon Chase, said he expects nothing will happen anytime soon in the court case. That's because in residential foreclosures, judges typically require the lender and homeowner to go to mediation -- to sit down and try to hash out a resolution.

That's not happened in this case.

It was supposed to Oct. 10.

Chase said Friday that he hired a mediator and that Dorworth and his estranged wife, Elizabeth Shale Dorworth, appeared that day with a settlement offer but that no one appeared for the other side.

Now, instead of working toward a settlement, the bank is doing the opposite, asking for that default judgment plus attorney fees and costs, about $2,000.

Dorworth, 35, a land developer and Lake Mary Republican, was elected to the Florida House in 2007. He's slated to become its speaker in 2014, despite a string of financial setbacks.

In addition to the foreclosure, he's also been ordered to repay a $2.7 million loan on a failed Oviedo subdivision development, and he's going through a contentious divorce.

Both he and his wife want the house, an 8,000-square foot home with six bedrooms and ten baths.

They'll argue about it in court Jan. 30 before their divorce judge, Circuit Judge George B. Turner in Viera. Chris Dorworth is demanding exclusive use of the house. He currently lives there. His wife moved out.

The week the foreclosure suit was filed, Dorworth insisted he had never missed a monthly payment and said the whole thing was a dispute over his refusal to pay an additional $1,000 each month for a wind insurance policy.

Chase said Friday that Dorworth wants to settle and is willing to pay but won't say how much.

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