What will 2010 hold for TH Properties and its customers

2 January, 2010

Buildings under construction at T.H. Properties’ Coddington View development off of Farmington Avenue in Upper Pottsgrove are pictured in April 2009. Mercury file photo

In “The Waste Land” poet T.S. Eliot famously expounded, “April is the cruellest month.” Those words proved true on April 24, 2009, when T.H. Properties co-founder Todd Hendricks held a press conference announcing the company had suspended operations.

Six days later, on April 30, T.H.P. declared bankruptcy.

During the ensuing months several T.H.P. customers made public their disappointment and even disgust with the developer’s conduct both before and after bankruptcy.

In particular, THP faced criticism for its apparent failure to escrow customers’ deposits, as required by Pennsylvania’s Planned Community Act. Instead THP placed the deposits into its operating fund, according to court records.

In June, THP bankruptcy attorney Natalie Ramsey told a judge that principals Tim and Todd Hendricks claimed ignorance of the law.

In the months following the bankruptcy, homebuyers who came looking to reclaim their nest eggs were told the money was gone.

Throughout the bankruptcy proceedings, THP has maintained its plan to emerge a stronger and better company. This despite several banks filing lift-stay motions to recover loans worth millions of dollars; as well, there are the unpaid vendors that have filed liens against THP homebuyers.

One THP customer turned crusader is Ed Crotty, a resident of Biltmore Estates in Skippack Township. Crotty wasted no time putting his computer skills to work when he created WheresBuilder.com, a Web site for THP customers, when he first heard THP was in trouble a few days before Todd Hendricks’ April 24 press conference.

Time has done little to temper Crotty’s anger.

“TH Properties in the year 2009 effectively demolished the American Dream,” Crotty said Wednesday. “A new home purchase is supposed to be the most exciting time of a family’s life. Instead, my family is left with an incomplete home and neighborhood, liens for bills T.H. Properties did not pay, zero customer service and warranty, and a multitude of broken promises.”

Looking ahead to 2010, Crotty said, “T.H. Properties’ resolution list should fill a large, single spaced book.”

Based on a statement T.H.P. released Wednesday through Braithwaite Communications, the company said it is working on just that — a resolution.

In part, the statement reads: “While these difficult economic times have had a tremendous impact on the home building industry in general, causing many builders to liquidate and close their doors, T.H.P. has persevered not to go down this path.

“Rather, with the cooperation of T.H.P.’s creditors and vendors as well as certain of its lenders, T.H.P. has reached an agreement in principal on a plan of reorganization that will allow it to reorganize as a going concern and continue to construct and deliver quality homes to many of its existing as well as new customers.”

According to the statement, T.H.P. “has completed or is in the process of completing numerous homes that were under construction when its reorganization case was filed, and, to date, has sold 24 homes in its Belmont, Hawthorne, Westport Farms, Kingston Hill, Northgate, Coddington and Cliffside Manor developments.”

Moreover, the company “has also reached agreement on financing with Susquehanna Bank and has obtained the necessary court approval for a complete build out of 185 homes in Burbank Grove,” THP claims in its statement.

Further, “an agreement in principal has been negotiated that will allow for the complete build out of Biltmore Estates as well as the potential for completion of additional phases in Northgate.”

“Assuming these agreements are approved by the court, T.H.P. will be in a position to deliver homes to the vast majority of purchasers who signed a contract with T.H.P.”

The statement continues. “These agreements should also allow T.H.P. to return the deposits of those for whom T.H.P. cannot deliver a home, and address liens recorded against T.H.P. homes.”

According to the statement, T.H.P.’s vendors “are enthusiastically supporting” the company’s reorganization by donating “labor and equipment to maintain and/or clean up projects in order to move forward with construction and sales once agreements are in place.”

The statement concludes, “During the best of times, reorganization is a difficult process for all concerned. Given these extraordinary times, this reorganization process has been even more difficult. Despite these difficulties, T.H.P. has never wavered from its commitments to its vendors and home purchasers.

“T.H.P. remains devoted to reorganizing and emerging as a well-positioned company to provide the highest levels of service and products to its customers.”

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