The apartment building in Portland where a fire on Nov. 1 killed six young adults is in foreclosure.
The landlord, Gregory Nisbet, had not kept up with mortgage payments at 20-24 Noyes St. and this summer was given 300 days to buy the home back from Bank of America for $301,967, according to documents filed with the Cumberland County Register of Deeds.
Nisbet, an owner and designated broker for Downeast Realty in South Portland, could not be reached for comment. The attorney for Bank of America who is listed on the foreclosure judgment said she was not authorized to comment on the case.
The Noyes Street duplex is one of 48 apartment buildings in Portland with two units or more that are in foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac.com, a supplier of real estate data pulled from governmental, banking, investment and real estate sources.
Documents in the foreclosure case indicate the mortgage company initiated the foreclosure process in 2012. A judgment of foreclosure dated July 3, 2014, and filed Sept. 8 with the registry of deeds shows that a Cumberland County Superior Court judge gave Nisbet 300 days to pay Bank of America $301,967.
Nisbet is named as a defendant individually, as well as a trustee of the Gregory J. Nisbet Revocable Living Trust and as a trustee of the Margaret G. Nisbet Living Trust. Maine Bank and Trust Agreement Co. and Coastal Realty Capital are listed as parties in interest.
The filing, which does not list an attorney for Nisbet, shows the outstanding balance stems from a mortgage taken out in March 2010. Nisbet, however, has been the landlord of the property since 2003, according to inspection reports released by the city on Friday.
Those records revealed the city had been called to the property 16 times over the last 11 years to investigate neighborhood complaints that included the overall condition of the property, storage of combustible material on the porch and a potentially illegal third unit being rented on the third floor, where two young women died Nov. 1.
The city’s inspections records did not include a ruling on the third-floor unit, and officials have not responded to inquiries about the unit’s legal status because of the ongoing investigation.
Three of the victims of the fast-moving early morning fire were residents and three were visitors. Others in the home escaped by jumping out a second-story window. It was the deadliest fire in Maine since 1963, when six children were killed in a fire on Gilman Place in Portland.
State Fire Marshal Joseph Thomas said the agency has not determined how the Noyes Street fire started, and there is no immediate indication the fire was intentionally set.
“We’ve taken samples of things that help us get the (fire) modeling or the reverse engineering,” Thomas said, referring to Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives techniques used to assess the intensity of a fire to find out where, when and, ideally, how it started. “We’re simply waiting on that stuff to come back from the ATF lab before we can take it in any direction,” he said.
Other documents filed in the registry of deeds reveal that Nisbet struggled to make payments on other properties as well.
A two-family apartment building at 183-185 Dartmouth St. also is in foreclosure. A Superior Court judgment dated June 2 and filed with the registry of deeds July 23 gave him up to 90 days to pay Green Tree Servicing, LLC $341,134.
The city of Portland had filed a municipal lien against Nisbet’s personal home on Noyes Street seeking $6,873 for unpaid property taxes and a sewer lien seeking $275 for an apartment building on Dartmouth Street.
Staff Writer David Hench contributed to this report.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
