Condo owner wants Banyan Tree Condominium condemned

FORT MYERS, Fla.- The owner of a condo at Banyan Tree Condominium is devastated. He says his $40,000 investment he made 37 years ago is now worthless. Not only that, but code enforcement wanted to slap him with a fine for not maintaining his building.

“I lost my total $40,000 investment,” Donald Miller told WINK News. “There is no recovering unless somebody wants to take it off my hands.”

Code enforcement officials say his place is unlivable. There are holes in the ceiling, his bathroom is a mess and vandals took everything.

Miller went to a code board meeting Thursday.

“I can’t pay it,” he said. “We’re retired, we’re in our 70s, we’re on social security. There’s just no way we can maintain this.”

Miller says he pays his monthly association fees, but nothing gets fixed. Other people who live at Banyan Tree agree.

“The walls inside, the toilet, half of this stuff doesn’t work,” listed one resident.

Miller said he doesn’t have the money to fix everything. Even if he did, he doesn’t want to make repairs if the complex, as a whole, is falling apart.

“Well, if they want to condemn the whole building it would be better for me,” he told WINK News.

That’s what code enforcement might decide.

“If we don’t get any kind of activity throughout the entire complex, I will be back and I will be unsafing the entire complex; all 30 units,” said Rick Scott, a code enforcement officer.

For now, Miller doesn’t have to worry about those fines. He will likely have to return to code board, however, in January for the next hearing.

WINK News left messages and sent emails to the Banyan Tree Condo Association for comment. They have not responded.