Tenants have one week to move after city code standards enforced by city

HOLLY HILL, Fla. — Tenants at a Holly Hill extended stay motel tell Eyewitness News they’ve been displaced with only a week’s notice.

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A letter posted on their doors explained the units needed renovations to meet current city code standards.

A tenant who didn’t want to be identified said starting in January, she was sent a series of letters alerting her to repairs.

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Then on March 8, she received a notice stating she had until April 15 to move out. That was followed by a final letter on March 22, telling all tenants they had to leave by March 29.

“You feel like they’re just kind of throwing you out basically with nowhere to go and they expected you to pay rent and everything to them,” said the tenant.

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Jemecca Smith has been living in her unit since August of last year. She was told the current buildings are not up to code and would eventually be demolished and rebuilt.

“I am poor, so the new place that’s going to be here is going to be too expensive for me to even look at. So, I don’t know what’s next,” said Smith.

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The property manager sent Eyewitness News this statement:

“Vincenza Family Enterprises, LLC dba Vincenza Realty is the Property Manager for the property.

We do not own nor have ever owned said property.

The City of Holly Hill mandated we, as Property Managers, acting on behalf of the owner, bring the property into compliance by following the licensing guidelines.

Those licensing guidelines state a property licensed as a motel must have rentals 30 days or less.  The motel was licensed years ago as a motel. The guidelines can be viewed at Florida Department of Professional Business Regulations and one can see the difference between transient and non-transient licensing.

In order to offer the community more affordable long-term housing thus re-licensing the property, the owner has agreed to renovate, rebuild and remodel most of the existing structures.

We fought to keep our long-term tenants in place, even retaining an Attorney, but in the end the City of Holly Hill was well within the law to request any person living at the motel for more than 30 days vacate.

Tenants were provided a 35-day notice rather than the State of Florida required 7 days vacate notice for week-week tenancies.

Vincenza Realty also offered to return funds collected for a certain period of time to assist with their relocation efforts.  In addition, we offered to provide assistance in relocating to any of our other properties.

It is unfortunate they have to relocate as we understand the disruption to their lives, but we have exhausted all legal options and as a business we must abide by the law.

Regards,

Vincenza Realty”

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