🚨Urgent Lease Rent Challenge🚨

A 10-year lease rent reset has dramatically increased costs for 54 Canterbury Place residential owners and the commercial.

- The Master Lease rent for July 1, 2025 – June 30, 2035 has been renegotiated and signed between the AOAO and the Kongs.

- Total ground rent jumps from about $42,000 per year to approximately $665,000 per year.

- For many leasehold residential units, monthly payments increase from under $55 to over $800 – roughly a fifteen-fold increase. Other units have larger or smaller impacts. Commercial went from $603 monthly to $9300 per month.

OUR POSITION:

These increases result from serious legal and valuation errors by "experts." We believe we should have independent lessee counsel appointed, the agreement should be challenged in court and put on hold, and rent set by an impartial arbitration as the Master Lease requires.

- Appointment of independent Hawai'i counsel to represent all lessees in the master lease rent renegotiation as required by Hawaii statute, like we had for the Sandwich Lease renegotiation and buyout.

- Request court put AOAO agreement on hold. No increase or lump sum rent payments until a judge reviews AOAO  agreement, signed by AOAO without authority or your vote.  

- Obtain a court order to arbitrate  for fair valuation by enforcement of the Master Lease required arbitration clause, because negotiation deadline has long passed.

- Use of appraisal methods that account for minority interest discounts and existing encumbrances.

- Force Kong Lessors back to the negotiating table for buyout, to improve property values in the entire building, so we do not have to go through this again in nine years.

- Transparent communication with all residential and commercial leasehold owners at Canterbury Place.

- Former Navy Real Estate Director (6 Years): Acquisition, management, leasing and disposal of all Navy real estate in Hawai'i (Pearl Harbor, Marine Base Kane'ohe, PMRF Kaui'i, etc.).

- Federal real estate executive (11 years) in senior positions with the FDIC, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the VA.  Worked on bank failures from 2010 to 2014 at the FDIC. I was responsible for closing banks, evaluating nationwide loan and real estate assets acquired from failed institutions, and liquidating those assets. I was selected by FDIC to attend the two-year Southwest Graduate School of Banking master’s program in banking at SMU, from which I graduated with honors

- Practicing attorney with a strong real estate background for nearly 20 years before entering federal service; an active member of the Bar in Florida since 2002 and District of Columbia since 1993, and inactive in several more states.

- On graduation from law school 1993, I leveraged my background with clients including  two banks and private lenders for loan workout and real estate asset liquidation.  

- Licensed real estate broker in Hawai'i for the 11 years we have lived at Canterbury Place. - I am also a licensed real estate broker in Florida, where we owned a multimillion-dollar real estate agency with 40 agents. I have been an actively and continuously licensed Real Estate Broker in multiple states for over forty years. My wife Janine has had a real estate license longer than I have. Represented FNMA, FHMLC, and multiple lenders during the 2007 financial crunch in the acquisition, management, evaluation and liquidation of distressed properties.

- From 1985-1990, Commercial Credit Officer and Credit Manager for a billion-dollar regional commercial bank. Responsible for all credit analysis, asset evaluation and loan workout functions team during the period including the 1987 financial crisis.

- Retired from government 2024. Currently assisting fellow disabled veterans with VA claims. 

DISCLAIMER:

I am not a Hawai'i lawyer. This site does not provide legal advice. Its sole purpose is to inform and educate fellow lessees and organize support so we can hire independent Hawai'i counsel to represent us, as required by law, and get fair lease valuation by arbitration, as required by our Master Lease.