Case Files · 12 August 2026
The MIAMI Confidential
What the brochure leaves out. Foreclosures, litigation, blown deadlines and financing that never closed — dated, sourced, and followed by the only part that matters: what it means if you are the one signing.
Key Takeaways
- 22 of 38 South Florida towers have missed a delivery date — 33 documented slips in total. Exactly one has ever moved its date forward.
- 14 towers are selling with no construction loan reported by any source. Buyer deposits go in before any lender has underwritten the project.
- Five projects are stalled or in litigation, including one in foreclosure accruing $53,621 a day in interest.
- A .6 billion Surfside tower cannot be built because no carrier will write the construction cover — and the reason is the sponsor’s lack of a local partner, not the site.
- A July 2025 appeals ruling broke a condominium buyout and, per The Real Deal, has implications for condo terminations statewide.
- Una Residences delivered roughly five years late with nothing going wrong — funded sponsor, closed loan, continuous construction, 90% presold. The brochure date is an estimate; the outside date in your contract is the one that binds.
What This Is
Most Miami real estate coverage is a press release with a photograph attached. A tower gets announced, a rendering circulates, and eighteen months later nobody mentions that it never got financed.
The Miami Confidential is the other half of the story. When a project stalls, when a lender forecloses, when an association sues its developer, when a delivery date quietly moves for the fourth time — that goes here. Not because it is entertaining, but because it is the information that decides whether you wire a deposit.
This is news only. Lifestyle, neighbourhood guides and building features live in the blog. An item runs here only if it clears two bars: something changed, and it changes what a buyer or seller would do.
The standard, so you know what you are reading.
Every figure carries a date and a named source I have actually read. Where two credible sources disagree, both numbers appear and I say so. Where something is not published anywhere, the item says MISSING rather than guessing.
Litigation is reported as filed. A claim is an allegation, not a finding, and this page says which is which. Nothing here predicts how a case resolves.
Press releases are not news. The story runs when the county record, the docket or the lender says something different.
Found something wrong? Tell me and I will correct it publicly, with a source.
Nobody Will Insure the $1.6 Billion Surfside Tower
The Delmore — 37 residences on the site where 98 people died in 2021 — has been halted since February 2026 because construction insurance could not be placed.
The reason is not the site. It is the sponsor. Carriers balked at two things about DAMAC: the Dubai-based developer’s lack of South Florida development experience, and the absence of a local development partner — the relationships that open doors with domestic carriers and Lloyd’s syndicates. In the same month, a deal covering more than $200 million in contracts collapsed.
“We should have spent more time on community reaction rather than physical property.”
Jeffery Rossely, SVP of Development, DAMAC International
“It’s still a very challenging market.”
Shanna Sweeney, SVP Excess Casualty, Upland Specialty — on placing construction cover
A tower that cannot obtain construction insurance cannot be built, cannot be financed on normal terms, and cannot give you a delivery date. That is a different category of problem from being behind schedule.
DAMAC says it will relaunch late in 2026 contingent on a joint-venture partner and resolving the cover. Those are the same problem — the local partner is what makes the insurance placeable. Until both are announced, any completion date quoted to you is an aspiration.
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Sources: Insurance Business · The Real Deal, 15 April 2026 · Full file: The Delmore
$53,621 a Day, and the Cranes Have Stopped
Mercedes-Benz Places Miami — JDS Development’s two-tower, 800-unit project with a 174-key hotel — is in foreclosure and construction has stopped.
An $85 million bridge loan from Maxim Credit Group, extended repeatedly from late 2023, matured in January 2025 and was not repaid. On 24 March 2026 a Cottonwood Group affiliate took the loan over and in April 2026 filed to foreclose. Subcontractors have filed liens. The City of Miami served a default notice over an $8 million firehouse obligation. Roughly 10 percent of buyers requested rescission.
If you hold a contract here, take it to a Florida real-estate attorney — not the sales office. Ask where your deposit sits and under what escrow terms, what your outside date is and whether it has passed, and whether a foreclosure or change of sponsor triggers any right on your side. Ten percent of buyers already moved.
Worth knowing about this sponsor: JDS also has 888 Brickell, which as of 8 July 2026 still had no closed construction financing and has never had vertical construction reported by any credible source.
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Open the full Mercedes-Benz Places file →
Sources: Bisnow, 6 April 2026 · The Real Deal, 11 June 2026 · Full file: Mercedes-Benz Places
76 Alleged Defects, and Still No Final Certificate of Occupancy
On 30 January 2026 the Missoni Baia condominium association filed suit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court alleging 76 construction and design defects — water intrusion, cracks in structural elements, defective fire-safety systems, elevator malfunctions and lobby finishes missing against the promotional materials.
The defendants are OKO Group, Asymptote Architecture, Revuelta Architecture International, general contractor Civic Construction and 19 subcontractors. Co-developer Cain International is not named. The building received a temporary certificate of occupancy in 2023 and was handed to the association in 2024 with defects unresolved.
Buying a resale in a building with active defect litigation is a specific transaction, not a normal one. Remediation gets paid for somehow — understand who pays and when, before you close.
Get the association’s reserve study, budget and any pending special assessment; the milestone structural inspection; the current docket through counsel; and written confirmation your lender will finance in a building with active structural litigation. Some will not.
A 76-item claim is a pleading, not a finding. The missing final CO is a fact.
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Open the full Missoni Baia file →
Sources: The Real Deal, 12 February 2026 · 7 April 2026 · Full file: Missoni Baia
The Ruling That Broke a Condo Buyout — and Put Others Across Florida in Doubt
Two Roads Development needed to terminate the existing Biscayne 21 condominium to build its 55-storey tower. To do it, the declaration had been amended to lower the termination threshold from 100 percent of owners to 80 percent.
In July 2025 a Florida appeals court sided with the holdout owners, ruling the amendment unlawfully altered unit owners’ voting rights. In October 2025 the Florida Supreme Court declined a rehearing. The Real Deal reported the decision has implications for condominium buyouts statewide. On 14 May 2026 three buyers sued seeking roughly $2.5 million in deposits back.
If you are buying: in any project built on a condo termination, site control is the first question, not the last. Ask whether every owner has been bought out, whether the termination is final, and whether any appeal is live. A rendering on a site the developer does not control is worth nothing.
If you own in an older condominium being courted for a buyout: this ruling materially strengthened your position. A developer cannot simply amend the threshold down and proceed. Get your own counsel before signing anything.
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Open the full EDITION Residences file →
Sources: The Real Deal, 14 May 2026 · 10 July 2025 · 16 October 2025 · Full file: EDITION Residences
Everything Went Right at Una Residences. It Still Delivered Five Years Late.
This one has no villain, which is why it is the most useful file on the page.
Una Residences received its temporary certificate of occupancy on 26 February 2026. The first public completion expectation, reported April 2020, was 2021. In between: a $128.3 million construction loan closed in April 2021 and the date moved to 2023. The tower topped off in April 2024 and the date moved to early 2025. Three documented slips.
Through all of it the sponsor was well capitalised, the loan closed, construction never stopped, and the building sold more than 90 percent before completion — two tri-level penthouses trading at $17.75 million each.
The date on the brochure is an estimate. The date in your purchase agreement is the one with consequences. Una is the proof: a project where nothing went wrong still took five extra years.
Ask for the outside date, ask what happens if it passes, and plan your financing, housing and tax position around that date. Buyers who did fine here were the ones not counting on keys in 2021.
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Open the full Una Residences file →
Sources: Florida YIMBY, February 2026 · The Real Deal, 20 April 2021 · Full file: Una Residences
Two Years After the Ribbon Cutting, the Owners Sued the Developer Eighteen Times Over
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Aston Martin Residences was the trophy. 66 storeys, 391 residences, 817 feet, a sail-shaped tower at the mouth of the Miami River, a sellout expected to clear $1 billion. It cut the ribbon on 30 April 2024, roughly four years after the completion date originally expected, with one unit of 391 unsold — a 27,000 square foot triplex penthouse asking $59 million.
The association took control from the developer in March 2024. Within two years it had filed twice.
The first suit, filed 30 January 2026 (Filing #240709382, 11th Judicial Circuit, Miami-Dade), names eighteen defendants — among them Riverwalk East Development LLC, Biscayne 303 LLC, GC Builders International LLC, G and G Business Developments LLC, Super Holdings LLC, Riverside Alliance Management LLC, and individually German Coto, Marcelo Scarinci, Guillermo Cacagno, Gloria A. Garcia and Daniel Ricardo Andrada.
As filed, the association alleges inflated and no-bid vendor contracts, bogus invoices for cleaning, security and water-damage repairs, $34,334 a month charged for concierge services it says were not provided, $70,000 in rent for a third-floor unit used as the developer’s own sales office, and roughly $800,000 paid to a security company it alleges had no track record. It also alleges a promised helipad and beach-club access were never delivered, and that computers were wiped before turnover. Damages sought: over $5 million.
“They took every financial advantage they could … there was nobody who was independent.”
Ariella Gutman, attorney for the condominium association — The Real Deal, 3 February 2026
“None of that was what was expected or represented to us.”
Michael Diaz, association president, on the promised amenities — Bisnow, 3 February 2026
Coto’s attorney Lewis Conwell told The Real Deal he had not seen the complaint and his client had not been served. Then the developer side sued back. Biscayne 303, an entity tracing to G&G, sued the association for breach of contract after owners terminated the $70,000 sales-office lease, seeking more than $100,000 and possession of the unit.
The second suit, filed mid-April 2026, is about the building itself. As filed, the alleged defects include spalling concrete and exposed rebar on the exterior, cracks and water leaks at the pool and spa structures, exposed post-tension tendons, waterproofing failures, seawall cracks with corrosion, elevator defects, fire-system leaks and corrosion, improperly sloped balconies, and slab-edge erosion on balconies creating a falling-debris hazard.
The two outlets that covered it disagree, and both numbers belong on the record. Bisnow reports 17 named defendants, a minimum of $750,000 pleaded, and names Riverwalk East Developments LLC, Revuelta Architecture International, Coastal Construction South Florida, DeSimone Consulting Engineering and TK Elevator Corp. The Real Deal describes it as filed under Florida Statute 558, names G&G Business Developments, Coastal Construction, Revuelta, Shamrock Engineering, DeSimone and Capform plus roughly a dozen subcontractors, and puts damages at “millions of dollars.” The two lists do not corroborate each other.
“The developer has formally responded to these allegations through the appropriate legal channels and remains confident that, once all facts are fully reviewed, the court will reach a fair and favorable determination.”
Riverwalk East Developments spokesman — Bisnow, 21 April 2026
Nothing here has been decided. Both filings are allegations, not findings, and the developer denies them. But the existence of an active defect action against a two-year-old building is a material fact that will surface in every future closing at this address.
If you are buying here, ask the association directly for: the current status of both cases, whether a special assessment has been discussed to fund repairs, and what the reserve study says. Defect litigation is frequently funded by assessment, and an assessment levied after you close is yours to pay.
If you own here, the falling-debris allegation is the one to watch — it is the kind of finding that drives an emergency assessment rather than a scheduled one.
Sources: The Real Deal, 3 February 2026 · Bisnow, 3 February 2026 · Bisnow, 21 April 2026 · The Real Deal, 27 April 2026 · The Real Deal, 30 April 2024 · Complaint, Filing #240709382, 11th Judicial Circuit
The Car Elevator Tower Everyone Talks About. Here Is What Is Actually on the Record.
Porsche Design Tower at 18555 Collins Avenue is the building with the “Dezervator” — the elevator that takes your car to your apartment. It delivered in 2017. Dezer Development paid off its $214 million Wells Fargo construction loan, and a document presented at a 2020 trial put the profit at $344.9 million.
By the standards of this section, that is a success. So this file is mostly about what is not on the record — because the gap between what circulates about this building and what a tier-one outlet has actually reported is unusually wide.
What is on the record:
The neighbouring Millennium condo association sued in Miami-Dade Circuit Court, naming Dezer Development, 18555 Developers LLC, the Porsche Design Tower condo association itself, Coastal Construction of South Florida, Sieger Suarez Architects, HJ Foundation, NV5 Global, Pistorino & Alam and CHM Structural Engineers. As filed: excessive vibration from sheet-piling equipment starting in 2013 cracked the Millennium’s lobby, parking garage and pool deck, and concrete overspray damaged the south facade and balconies. Identified damages $4 million, including $1 million to repaint and resurface.
Zarrella Construction sued Coastal Construction for at least $1.42 million in unpaid framing, insulation, drywall and painting work at the tower.
Two separate federal cases touched units here. Prosecutors moved to seize Unit 2205 ($5.3 million), alleging it was compensation in a $1 billion scheme laundering money out of Venezuela’s state oil company. A later indictment tied both Unit 4406 ($12.8 million) and Unit 2205 to an alleged $1 billion laundering scheme naming Raúl Gorrín and former Venezuelan national treasurer Alejandro Andrade.
And one unit tells you what the resale floor looked like: Unit 3605 sold for $6.7 million in March 2017, was listed at $8.9 million, went to auction, and Dezer bought it back for $4.1 million — about $2.6 million below the original price — before reselling it at $6.25 million.
“I don’t understand why anybody would go to auction like that. I guess he kind of needed the cash.”
Gil Dezer, President, Dezer Development — The Real Deal, 30 April 2019
“Buyers are showing up to closing. We’re not going to have this bloodbath that we had in 2008.”
Gil Dezer, on paying off the construction loan — Bisnow, 15 December 2016
There is no construction-defect action by this building’s own association in any source I could verify — which, next to Aston Martin, is the meaningful comparison. The litigation here is a neighbour’s construction-damage claim, a subcontractor payment fight, and federal forfeiture actions against two individual owners. None of those is a defect in your unit.
Where I have to be straight with you: a 2024 land-subsidence study naming this tower was covered widely, but I could not find it in a single primary outlet and I have not read the study. So this page says nothing about it. If subsidence matters to your decision — and at an oceanfront tower it reasonably might — commission your own structural review rather than relying on either the coverage or on me.
Ask for: the milestone inspection report, the reserve study, and the current insurance renewal terms. Those three documents answer more than any headline.
Sources: The Real Deal, 10 October 2016 · Bisnow, 15 December 2016 · The Real Deal, 9 July 2018 · The Real Deal, 20 November 2018 · The Real Deal, 30 April 2019 · Bisnow, 1 July 2020
The Tower With the Most Famous Name in Brickell and No Reported Vertical Construction
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888 Brickell by Dolce&Gabbana is one of the most heavily marketed addresses in the city. It is also, on the public record, one of the least documented.
Two things are worth a buyer’s attention here, and neither is a secret — they are simply things nobody assembles in one place.
First, the developer’s own materials do not agree on how tall the building is. One page publishes 81 storeys; another publishes 90. That is not a rounding difference. It is the kind of discrepancy that tells you the design was still moving after buyers began contracting.
Second, financing had still not closed as of 8 July 2026. A tower without a closed construction loan is a tower that cannot commit to a delivery date, no matter what date appears in the sales gallery.
None of this says the tower will not be built. JDS has built in this market before and the site is real. What it says is that the two milestones that convert an announcement into a building — a closed construction loan and vertical construction — have not been reported.
If you are considering a deposit, ask for three documents in writing before you wire: the construction loan commitment, the building permit, and the current approved storey count. If the answer to the third one is not the same number on both of the developer’s own pages, you are contracting into a building whose final form is not settled.
Florida escrow protections are real but they are not automatic, and they do not compensate you for the years. Read your purchase agreement’s outside date and its remedy for missing it.
Open the full 888 Brickell file →
Sources: Full dated sourcing, including the developer’s conflicting storey counts and the July 2026 financing status, is set out on the 888 Brickell building file · Pattern data: Miami Pre-Construction Delivery Tracker
The Standing Record
Individual files are the news. The pattern is the Miami Pre-Construction Delivery Tracker — 38 South Florida towers, what each promised buyers at launch, what it promises now, and how many times the date has moved.
22 have slipped at least once across 33 documented slips. 14 are selling with no construction loan reported by any source. Five are stalled or in litigation. Seven have never published a completion date at all. And exactly one has ever moved its date forward.
Last reviewed 5 August 2026. Every file is sourced to dated reporting, linked inline. Litigation is described as filed — allegations are not findings, and nothing here predicts an outcome. Positions change: a project with no construction loan today may close one next month. If you are relying on any of this for a transaction, have counsel check the current record. Corrections are made publicly, with a source.
Miami Real Estate — What Buyers Actually Ask
Which Miami pre-construction condo projects are stalled or in foreclosure?
As of August 2026, five of the 38 South Florida towers we track are stalled or in litigation. Mercedes-Benz Places Miami is in foreclosure with a claim of $80.4 million in principal plus roughly $20 million in interest, accruing at $53,621 a day, and construction has stopped. The Delmore in Surfside has been halted since February 2026 because construction insurance could not be placed. 888 Brickell by Dolce&Gabbana has never had vertical construction reported by any credible source. The EDITION Residences Edgewater cannot demolish the existing Biscayne 21 because an appeals court ruled the condominium termination invalid. 72 Carlyle shows no assessed building value on the county tax roll for 2025 or 2026.
Which Miami towers are selling with no construction loan?
Fourteen of the 38 towers on our Delivery Tracker are selling, or have sold out, with no construction loan reported by any primary source. That includes Delano Residences Miami, Faena Residences Miami, Frida Kahlo Wynwood Residences, Edge House Miami, ORA by Casa Tua, 619 Brickell by Nobu, Anantara Miami, Pagani Residences and 72 Carlyle. It is not automatically fatal — several are progressing on sponsor equity and deposits — but it means buyer deposits go in before any lender has underwritten the project.
Is it safe to buy pre-construction in Miami?
It can be, but the delivery record is worse than the marketing suggests. Of 38 South Florida towers we track, 22 have moved their completion date at least once, across 33 documented slips. Exactly one has ever pulled its date forward. Una Residences delivered roughly five years after its first promised date despite a well-capitalised sponsor, a closed construction loan, uninterrupted construction and 90 percent presales. The date on the brochure is an estimate; the outside date in your purchase agreement is the one with legal consequences.
What should I check before putting a deposit on a Miami pre-construction condo?
Five things. One: has a construction loan actually closed, and with which lender. Two: does the developer control the site outright — in projects built on condominium terminations, that is often unresolved. Three: what is the outside date in your contract, and what happens if it passes. Four: where is your deposit held and under what escrow terms. Five: how many times has the delivery date already moved, because one slip is normal and three is a pattern. Ask for answers in writing from counsel, not from the sales gallery.
Which Miami condo buildings have construction defect lawsuits?
Missoni Baia in Edgewater is the most significant current case. On 30 January 2026 its condominium association filed suit in Miami-Dade Circuit Court alleging 76 construction and design defects, including water intrusion, cracks in structural elements, defective fire-safety systems and elevator malfunctions. Defendants are OKO Group, Asymptote Architecture, Revuelta Architecture International, general contractor Civic Construction and 19 subcontractors. Co-developer Cain International is not named. The building had no final certificate of occupancy as of February 2026, roughly three years after temporary occupancy. A claim is an allegation, not a finding.
What is The Miami Confidential?
It is the news section of joshsteinrealtor.com covering Miami real estate developments that change what a buyer or seller would actually do — foreclosures, litigation, stalled construction, blown deadlines and financing that never closed. Every figure carries a date and a named source. Where credible sources disagree, both numbers are shown. Where nothing is published, it says so rather than guessing. Lifestyle and neighbourhood content lives on the blog instead.
Can a Florida condo association terminate and sell to a developer?
Not as easily as developers assumed. In July 2025 a Florida appeals court ruled that amending a condominium declaration to lower the termination threshold from 100 percent of owners to 80 percent unlawfully altered unit owners’ voting rights, siding with holdout owners at Biscayne 21 in Edgewater. The Florida Supreme Court declined a rehearing in October 2025. The Real Deal reported the decision has implications for condominium buyouts statewide. If you own in an older building being courted for a buyout, that ruling materially strengthened your position.
Sources and further reading
- No cover, no buyers: the insurance gap that stopped a $1.6bn Surfside tower — Insurance BusinessWhy The Delmore stopped: construction cover could not be placed because DAMAC lacked South Florida experience and a local development partner. Halted February 2026; a $200M+ contract deal collapsed the same month.
- At Surfside collapse site, big-name planned project hasn’t sold a single condo — The Real Deal15 April 2026: zero units sold and the planned relaunch.
- Lender moves to foreclose on Mercedes-Benz branded condo site — Bisnow6 April 2026: the foreclosure filing, the $80.4M principal and the $53,621 daily interest.
- Soffer to the rescue? JDS working on partner and $1B loan — The Real Deal11 June 2026: the reported Fontainebleau partnership and the City of Miami default notice.
- OKO Group accused of shoddy work at Missoni Baia condos — The Real Deal12 February 2026: the 76-defect suit filed 30 January 2026, the named defendants and the missing final certificate of occupancy.
- OKO sues insurers for $22M amid Missoni Baia foundation woes — The Real Deal7 April 2026: the $22.4M unpaid on $55.7M claimed, and the 2021 foundation settling.
- Edition Residences condo buyers sue Two Roads over stalled project — The Real Deal14 May 2026: three buyers suing over roughly $2.5M in deposits, with construction not started.
- Appeals court sides with Biscayne 21 condo owners — The Real Deal10 July 2025: the ruling that amending the termination threshold from 100% to 80% unlawfully altered owners’ voting rights.
- Florida Supreme Court denies rehearing for Two Roads — The Real Deal16 October 2025: the Supreme Court declining to revisit the buyout ruling.
- OKO Group and Cain receive TCO for 47-storey Una Residences — Florida YIMBYFebruary 2026: temporary certificate of occupancy, 129 units, 90%+ sold and the $17.75M penthouses.
- Miami Pre-Construction Delivery Tracker — Josh SteinOur own dated record of 38 South Florida towers: what each promised at launch versus what it promises now.
Start here
The main sections of The Miami Confidential.