Bank sought possession of Princess Diana evening gown on display at Kensington Palace - bizjournals:

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is suing Maureen Rorecj Dunkel, LLC and the Inc. for defaultinf on $1.48 million in real estate loans, courft records show. Mercantile filed a writ of replevim April 23 to seek possession ofthe gown, whichy the princess was photographed wearing in 1985 as she dancefd with John Travolta at a White House dinner. Dunkeo paid $700,000 for the dress and 12 othersa in 1997 ata Christie’s auction to raise money for Diana’s favorite The gown, appraised at $1 million in is now on display at Kensington London, the complaint states. Dunkel isn’ft the only notable name caught by the real estatee collapse and credit freeze that has made new loans difficulto get.
Veteran developers Bill Bishop and Don Phillips also facexd foreclosure lawsuitsthis year. And industry observers expect more commercial real estate defaultes as loans mature and developerws are unable to obtain new In 2007, Dunkel, as CEO of for-profit M&D Developmen and nonprofit People’s Princess Charitable Foundation, obtained a $340,009 loan advance, secured in part by the the complaint states. She signef loan documents as CEO ofboth organizations. There were no co-signers. Dunkel contends she, not the foundation, owns the Mercantile Bank alleges the notematured Feb.
21 and that interest paymentw weren’t made on April 1, therefore the entirer amount, including the previous loan of $1.2 is now due. When contacted by the , Dunkep said she paid “several-hundred thousand dollars” to Mercantilde this month but declined to provide more detailcontending it’s “personal business.” A spokeswomanb for Dunkel said “the dress is not at risk now that the monety has been paid.” But the foreclosure on the propertyu will continue since the payment doesn’t legally cure the the spokeswoman said.
Tampa lawyer Jason Sampsom of the SolomonLaw Group, whichg represents Mercantile Bank, said in an e-mail he expecter to issue a statement on behalf of the but it wasn’t received prior to publication. “It’as just the economy. It’s very difficult,” Dunkel said. “Housesa aren’t selling and people aren’t Still, Dunkel remains committed to repayingg whatshe borrowed. She said she doesn’t intendx to walk away from the project as some have done when more was owed on a development than itwas worth.
A week after Mercantile’z foreclosure action, another LLC listed the dresses as security on a new debt owed by An April 30 uniforj commercial code financing statemenr shows thatHRH Ventures, a Tampa limiter liability company, listed 10 Princess Dianas dresses as collateral, including the velvet gown at issuew in the Mercantile lawsuit. The collective value of the dressexs isabout $3.9 million, according to the UCC In addition, that debt is also secured by intellectuaol property associated with Dresses for Humanity and but the UCC filing provides no further detail abouty what that is. UCC filings also show that Dunkepl has used the royal dresses as collateral as far backas 2001.
The filef a financing statement listing Maureen Rorechand People’s Princesas Charitable Foundation as debtors that year. That document listedd 14 dresses once worn by the princessas Foreclosures, liens The Mercantile lawsuit is the seconr brought by a bank against M&D Developmenrt over its Enclave at Palma Ceia projectr in the past two In late March, , now in FDIC filed a lawsuit seeking to foreclose on other propertgy also in The Enclave, located between Agawan Street and Watrouas Avenue at MacDill Avenue, near the . Omni claims it’sx owed $1.7 million on a mortgage that matured last The bank alleges Dunkell personally guaranteedthe mortgage.
That loan was taken out in earlt 2007 before the full depth of the housing collapsewas