BROOKSVILLE – The problems with the little house at 314 Hendricks Ave. aren’t the stuff of ghost stories. They’re documented, to the penny, in the files at the city’s building department: $98,747.55 in code-enforcement liens and penalties piled onto a vacant, storm-battered home built in 1938.
On July 6, the City Council voted 5-0 to cut that total to $86,000, granting partial relief to Patrick Dallmann, the hard-money lender who foreclosed on the property last year, while rejecting his plea to erase the penalties altogether.
Dallmann, whose business makes short-term, asset-based loans to renovation contractors, never set out to own the two-bedroom, one-bath house. His company financed a buyer’s purchase, closing Jan. 19, 2024. The buyer made payments for about a year and a half — more than $29,000 in all — before defaulting. Dallmann foreclosed in September 2025 and took possession in March.
What he inherited was a 960-square-foot home in poor condition. No one has lived there for three years. Damaged by hurricanes and neglect, it needs extensive work to meet code, and it still carries the $98,747.55 in liens and penalties, the product of earlier owners, unpermitted work and years of accumulating administrative costs.
Community Services Manager David Hainley said the title company handling the purchase missed the lien. Much of the paperwork, he added, traces to someone unconnected to Dallmann who began work on the house without permits, ignored stop-work orders and never answered summonses.
Dallmann told the council he cannot obtain a certificate of occupancy while the liens stand, and he asked members to forgive them. He said he plans to sell the house eventually but does not expect to break even, even with the fines waived.
“This lien was the result of previous ownerships,” he said. “We had nothing to do with it.”
Relief, he said, would let him “move it forward” and pull the property out of its “death spiral.”
“I’m the one holding the bag right now,” Dallmann said. “So I’m asking for your help.”
Council members were sympathetic but wary. Council member Louis Hallal pressed Dallmann on what he knew when his company closed on the loan. Dallmann said he was aware of the lien and “questioned it as best I could,” but the borrower assured him it was minor and would be resolved. He now considers himself “naive” for trusting that.
Hallal asked why Dallmann went ahead knowing money was owed, saying he should have recognized something was wrong. Dallmann said he never learned the size of the lien, and that an exclusion in his title policy bars him from pursuing the title company.
Council member Betty Erhard worried that a full waiver would set a precedent others would seize on. “What is the point if we’re going to consider waiving liens all the time?” she asked.
“This is the only relief we have to this process,” Hainley said.
The debate turned repeatedly to the idea of “giving grace,” but members balked at wiping out the entire sum.
“$98,000 of grace? Personally, I cannot give,” Mayor Christa Tanner said. “I just can’t.”
After a lengthy discussion, the council settled on a compromise. An initial motion to cut the penalties to $70,000 was amended to set the lien at $86,000, and members approved it 5-0. Dallmann said he would “unload” the property, even though it is not livable.
Change orders
Public Works Director Richard Weeks presented a $35,345 change order for engineering design work on the William S. Smith Water Reclamation Facility expansion, covered by grant funding. Weeks said it adds electrical, instrumentation and control services, along with designs for control panels and a new generator, plus structural work to add a fourth rotor to the existing oxidation ditch — items not in the original scope.
A second change order, for $32,123.70, covers additional work discovered after crews began the Cortez Boulevard pump station replacement. It is paid through grant and other funding.
Members also discussed the need for paper-shredding services now that the city has digitized its files. Shredding, they agreed, would be more effective than burning the documents or soaking them into a pulpy “soup.”
In other action
The council began the process of seeking a new law firm, issuing a request for proposals. Council member Thomas Bronson praised the city’s current firm, Vose Law Firm, and said he hoped it would apply again.
Members also voted 5-0 to approve a water and wastewater service agreement with Liberty Cove Development, a planned 92-unit single-family development whose developer will pay the city $685,000.