STUART, Fla. — A builder on the Treasure Coast is accused of stiffing contractors and leaving homeowners stuck paying off thousands in liens on their property.
That builder, Mark Montalto, was arrested Tuesday night.
Homeowners tell us there's a measure of justice, but they wonder if they'll get their money back.
David Alvarado's home is almost ready for his family to move in.
For most of the year, the property was an empty lot, where he said Port St. Lucie Properties never started construction.
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Alvarado was forced to pay off a $19,000 lien or risk losing the property.
"Still holding up, somehow, some way," Alvarado, who moved his family from Utah to Port St. Lucie, said. "It's tough."
Contractors claiming Port St. Lucie Properties failed to pay them placed a total of $3.7 million in liens on 101 properties, according to court records compiled by WPTV Investigative Reporter Dave Bohman.
Port St. Lucie police and the St. Lucie County Sheriff's Office launched a combined 13 criminal investigations against company owner Mark Montalto.
Montalto has now been criminally charged with grand theft and failure of a contractor to perform work.
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Those charges are in Martin County where Chief Deputy Sheriff John Budensiek said Montalto took a $77,000 draw from a client to build a home.
"The $77,000 was whittled down to just a couple of hundred dollars, none of which was applied to our victim's building project," Budensiek said.
WPTV tried to contact Montalto. We went to his office, but the office no longer belongs to his company. The name "Port St. Lucie Properties" has been taken off the front of the building.
Alvarado said he's had to spend nearly $100 paying off liens, legal and building fees and getting a new builder to complete the job.
It's a job that he says should have been done by Port St. Lucie Properties and Montalto.
"He got what was coming to him, but it doesn't help as far as recovering what we all lost," Alvarado said.
A few homeowners called WPTV about Montalto's arrest.
They wonder how a builder so slow to build their homes could make a $60,000 bond to get out of the Martin County jail.
