TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — The Florida Attorney General has taken major legal action against a Delray Beach-based real estate company after an Action News Jax months-long investigation.
It’s a story we first brought you more than a year ago, exposing questionable -- even predatory -- business practices. Now the Attorney General has stopped MV Realty from enforcing its costly contracts and collecting any more money from homeowners.
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For years, the state AG said MV Realty has been deceiving homeowners into signing away home equity for a small amount of quick cash upfront. Based on this court ruling, that can’t happen again.
It’s a major victory for the people we’ve spent months talking to who can now sell their homes free and clear. In November 2023, Action News Jax Investigates uncovered nearly 600 homeowners in Northeast Florida and Southeast Georgia who signed MV Realty contracts, more than 9,300 total homeowners in Florida.
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Florida-based MV Realty is active in 33 states. Its contracts also allowed them to place a lien on their clients’ homes and most homeowners we talked to had no idea. Sheila Feliciano is one of them.
“It was a sweet, fast talk, you know?” she said. “I want to be rid of the contract and rid of MV. Like it was like a bad nightmare I want to wake up from.”
LEGAL ACTION TAKEN
Over more than a year, we’ve been working alongside reporters from our sister stations in seven states -- all of us investigating MV Realty and its practices.
Starting with Florida in November 2022, we’ve seen legal action in all seven of those states, plus five others, and legislation at both the state and federal levels.
Yet again, Florida is leading the way. On Thursday, the State Attorney General announced an injunction against the company, prohibiting it from enforcing its liens through the so-called Homeowner Benefit Agreements. MV is also barred from collecting early termination fees or payments from homeowners
OUR TRIP TO DELRAY HEADQUARTERS
After months of refusing an in-person interview, Action News Jax made the four-hour drive to MV Realty’s Delray Beach home office.
We wanted answers for the multiple customer complaints, but they wouldn’t even answer the door.
“Five people peeked around the corner and then one guy walked in that back office back there,” Action News Jax Investigative Reporter Emily Turner said. “Looks like he was calling or texting somebody.”
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They called the cops rather than talk to us themselves.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” the officer said. “If you want to set up on the sidewalk, there is nothing they can say about that. And nothing I can do about that. Totally your right.”
The officer is correct. We not only have a right to be there, but we also have an obligation to our viewers.
MV REALTY RESPONSE
MV Realty has never agreed to an interview and did not return our request for comment. Court documents show it has filed a motion to stop the injunction from going into place.
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