Mortgage lender suing Vegas motel for loan payments

Tuesday, Oct. 24, 2000 | 11:12 a.m.

Vestin Mortgage Inc., formerly Del Mar Mortgage, won a court order to appoint a receiver to collect rents and manage the French Quarter Suites, a 96-unit motel owned by Ideal Development Inc., a Las Vegas developer.

The French Quarter Suites, whom Paul Connaghan, Vestin's general counsel, said was appraised at more than $8 million, opened around mid-August and is located at 4700 Cameron Street, next to the Orleans hotel-casino. The motel offers daily and weekly room rentals to tourists and conventioneers.

Ashley Hall was appointed as Ideal's receiver by Clark County District Court Judge James Mahan to make an accounting of the company's assets and liabilities, funds received and paid out, salaries, commissions, fees and loans.

Vestin had sought an order in Clark County District Court on Oct. 17 to foreclose on the French Quarter Suites after Ideal Development defaulted on three deeds of trust totalling $6.3 million that were secured against the property. The deeds of trust provide for an assignment of rents upon default, the suit said.

Vestin, which alleged Ideal is "'spending and wasting the income generated" by the motel because it hasn't remitted payments from the rents it collected to the trust deed holders, said it wanted a receiver to preserve the property by paying insurance, taxes and maintenance with the rents the receiver collected.

"The receivership is intended to benefit everyone who is owed money on the property," Connaghan said. "We feel confident that our loan will be paid in full with interest."

Mark Anthony Rua, Ideal's president, could not be reached for comment.