Odessa files for protection

Management firm to stay open while reorganizing

A Mount Pleasant firm that provides property management services to more than two dozen local homeowner associations has filed for bankruptcy protection after some of its real estate investments soured.

Odessa Group LLC, which does business as Odessa Companies, filed for reorganization with the U.S. Bankruptcy Court on Tuesday.

Court filings show the company has about $417,000 in liabilities, almost double the value of its assets. Most of the company's debt is owed to banks, according to court documents.

Odessa offers an array of real-estate-related services, but its main business is homeowner regime and property management, said owner Jim Wilson. It currently provides management services to about 30 neighborhoods in the Charleston area.

It also offered property sales and brokerage services when the housing market was more active, Wilson added.

Financial troubles arose as the slowing economy affected some of its real estate investments, said Kevin Campbell, a Mount Pleasant bankruptcy attorney who is representing Odessa.

One arm of Odessa invested in development projects, fixing up properties and renting others out. It also helped convert an apartment complex off Rivers Avenue in North Charleston into condominiums.

Campbell and Wilson said homeowner association funds were not used to pay for the real estate investments.

Wilson said Odessa plans to continue providing property management services to its clients throughout the bankruptcy process, which will likely take a year.

"Actually, nothing changes," Wilson said. "We are continuing to do business."

The company has had one unresolved customer-service complaint filed against it in the past three years with the Better Business Bureau of Central South Carolina & Charleston.

The complaint's "unresolved" status means either the company didn't respond to the complaint or was unable to work out a resolution with the person who filed it, said Jim Camp, chief executive of the regional BBB.

The bureau doesn't provide names of people who file complaints with it, but Wilson said he believes the person behind this complaint was a homeowner who had been fined by Odessa and did not want to pay.

Odessa also was named in a lawsuit filed by Dot Scott, president of the Charleston chapter of the NAACP.

Scott is the owner of two townhouses in Woodhill Place, a North Charleston community that Odessa manages.

In 2007 she sued Woodhill's homeowner association and Odessa, alleging that the association violated its bylaws and misled her when it applied for a maintenance loan for the complex.

Odessa denied the allegations and Scott later dropped the lawsuit.

Reach Katy Stech at 937-5549 or kstech@postandcourier.com.