Another auction of Spicer Mansion scheduled for Saturday
Oct. 20—MYSTIC — Another public auction of Spicer Mansion will take place Saturday barring any unforeseen last-minute maneuver that could postpone the event.
The foreclosure sale is scheduled for noon on the premises of the eight-room boutique hotel, which is located at 15 Elm St. on the Groton side of Mystic.
The property was valued at $3.67 million prior to an initial foreclosure sale last March. Ross Weingarten, who submitted a winning bid of $3.52 million at that time, subsequently failed to close on the deal. He was one of four bidders, including Chelsea Groton Bank, which had brought the foreclosure action against the hotel's owner, Gates Realty Holdings.
Chelsea Groton had sued in New London Superior Court, alleging Gates Realty owed about $1.8 million on a mortgage loan.
Aimee Siefert, the attorney appointed by the court to conduct both foreclosure sales, indicated Thursday she didn't know what to expect at Saturday's auction.
"I haven't had a lot of calls to date," she wrote in an email.
Once again, prospective bidders will be required to register with Siefert in advance of the auction and present for her examination a certified bank check made payable to the bidder in the amount of $367,000.
Since the first foreclosure sale, Brian Gates, a Gates Realty principal, has pursued bankruptcy under Subchapter V of Chapter 11, which allows businesses to reorganize their debt while continuing to operate.The process has not gone smoothly, the record of the case in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Hartford shows.
In late September, a court-appointed trustee filed a motion seeking to convert the case to Chapter 7 or, alternatively, to dismiss the case. Generally, in Chapter 7 bankruptcy, a debtor's assets are liquidated.
Timothy Miltenberger, the Subchapter V trustee, wrote in a filing that information Gates has provided shows he has no income with which to reorganize.
During a Sept. 29 hearing, Steven Mackey, the U.S. trustee in the case, was highly critical of Gates and his attorney, George Tzepos. Mackey, heard on an recording of the hearing, takes Gates to task for filing two monthly operating reports that "contain no information" and failing to file others altogether.
"The U.S. trustee is not enamored of how the debtor and the debtor's counsel have conducted this Chapter 11 bankruptcy," Mackey said.
