The state Supreme Court has agreed to halt activities related to the auction of lots around Glade Springs owned by the family of Senator Jim Justice until the case can be more thoroughly reviewed.
The state’s top appeals court granted a motion to stay on Wednesday.
Lawyers for Justice Holdings filed a motion for stay with the appeals court Sept. 19 and then a motion to expedite that on Oct. 10.
Several hundred lots owned by Justice Holdings had been scheduled for foreclosure sale at 9 a.m. Oct. 29, according to a legal notice in the Beckley Register-Herald newspaper. Justice Holdings is a company owned by the family of Senator Justice, R-W.Va.
The sale was prompted by a longstanding dispute over homeowners fees at Glade Springs. The lawyer for the homeowners association filed a motion later on Wednesday to ask justices to review the situation quickly.
“On an expedited basis,” a decision by the court “could efficiently conclude this case so that the Special Commissioner may proceed, without further delay, with the judicial foreclosure of the lots on October 29, 2025,” wrote Mark Sadd, a lawyer representing the homeowners association.
A financial dispute between the Justice family business and Glade Springs Village Property Owners Association goes back years.
Jim Justice became the lead investor at the Glade Springs resort near Beckley several years before his 2016 election as West Virginia’s governor and now senator.
Now Justice corporate executives James Miller and Stephen Ball are listed as the top representatives for Justice Holdings, along with the senator’s son and daughter, Jay and Jill Justice.
Glade Springs is a resort, but it is also a planned community. Common properties including roads, the lake and the golf courses, are the property of the homeowners association.
Justice and his family acquired the lead development role in the golf resort community and its thousands of acres in 2010. Glade Springs has 750 private residences.
The homeowners board has taken issue with whether Justice Holdings owed assessments to maintain common properties just like everybody else, and they have pursued the matter in court.
Lawyers for Justice Holdings have disputed in court whether the lots can legally be sold at a foreclosure sale.
Generally, Justice Holdings disputes the fee assessments and the resulting liens by arguing that the real estate was never properly incorporated into the Glade Springs Village common interest community.
Raleigh Circuit Judge Todd Kirby, a former Republican state delegate, issued a final order Dec. 5 of last year, directing a special commissioner to sell hundreds of parcels of real property owned by Justice Holdings to satisfy the assessment liens claimed by the Glade Springs Property Owners Association.
This past June 20, lawyers for Justice Holdings filed a petition for writ of prohibition with the Supreme Court, asking for a review of whether the county court exceeded its authority — and whether the lower court made the decision on the correct basis of law.
“Specifically, the Circuit Court has no authority to order the sale of Petitioner’s real estate to satisfy the claimed assessment liens because the subject real estate was never lawfully added to the common interest community,” wrote the lawyers for Justice Holdings.
That is the main question currently before the appeals court, and the stay to halt the auction is part of the proceedings.
A late-day Wednesday filing on behalf of the Glade Springs homeowners association asks for the Supreme Court to handle the review quickly, noting that the overall questions involved have been before the courts for many years already.
“Respondent remains damaged and prejudiced by the multiple delays, with no factual or legal basis, caused by Petitioner’s tactics,” wrote Sadd, the attorney for the Glade Springs property owners.