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Donald Trump will be able to retain his Mar-a-Lago estate because of Florida’s very strong debtor protection, an attorney has said.
New York Attorney General Letitia James told ABC News on Tuesday that she would seize Trump properties if he doesn’t pay more than $450 million he owes from a civil fraud lawsuit ruling delivered on February 16.
In addition, Trump has to pay interest of over $87,000 a day on that debt, according to Associated Press calculations, plus pay $88.3 million to retired journalist, E. Jean Carroll, following a recent ruling in another civil trial.
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New York-based attorney Colleen Kerwick told Newsweek that debtor protection is so strong in Florida that it is written into the state’s constitution.
“Florida is a debtor’s haven. The homestead law in the Florida Constitution protects an unlimited amount of value in your residential home from judgment creditors,” she said.
Indeed, Art. X, Section 4 of the Florida Constitution exempts every state resident’s homestead from “forced sale under process of any court, and no judgment, decree or execution shall be a lien thereon.”
Kerwick said that, to qualify for the Florida homestead exemption, “you must live in the home, own the home, and maintain the home as your primary residence.”
She said that a 1993 agreement allowing Mar-a-Lago to become a private club explicitly bans club members from staying there for more than 21 days per year. Trump’s attorney said at the time that he was not living in Mar-a-Lago and was only a “member of the club.”
Trump changed his legal residence to Mar-a-Lago from Trump Tower in New York City in 2019. He is also registered to vote in Palm Beach County, Florida. According to a 2021 Forbes article, Palm Beach’s attorney ruled that the former president could legally live at Mar-a-Lago without violating the aforementioned agreement.
Kerwick said that Trump may have a way around this because Palm Beach zoning laws have allowed him to reside there as an employee of Mar-a-Lago.
“As such, it became his primary residence and became protected by Florida’s homestead laws,” she said.
Newsweek sought email comment from Trump’s attorney on Thursday.
On February 26, New York Judge Arthur Engoron, ruled that Trump will have to pay roughly $354.4 million in penalties for overinflating the value of his assets. With backdated interest, that figure comes to about $450 million, James’ office said in a statement. Donald Jr. and Eric Trump were ordered to each pay more than $4 million.
Trump, the current GOP frontrunner in the 2024 presidential election, has maintained his innocence and said the case was politically motivated.
On January 26, a New York jury ordered that Trump must pay $83.3 million in damages to Carroll, a retired journalist, for statements made in 2019. He said she was lying about allegations that he sexually assaulted her inside a Manhattan department store dressing room in the 1990s. That amount includes $7.3 million in compensatory damages, $11 million for reputational repair, and $65 million in punitive damages.
In May 2023, Trump was ordered to pay Carroll $5 million in damages in another civil defamation trial stemming from a denial he made about her claims in 2022. He has repeatedly denied all wrongdoing and has appealed that verdict.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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