PROVINCETOWN — The 12-unit apartment complex on Bradford Street known as “Napiville” after its late owner, Anton “Napi” Van Dereck Haunstrup, that long provided housing for his restaurant employees and other friends and family has been sold.

The property has been the subject of a yearslong battle with the town over unsafe conditions. The sale came just as the town was preparing to take the previous owners to housing court over unaddressed sanitary code violations.

The sale recorded on Aug. 8 was for $1.8 million — about half the property’s $3.5-million assessed value. The buyer is a Delaware-based company, according to the Barnstable County Registry of Deeds.

‘Davis Heights’

Little is publicly known about the new owners of Napiville. The limited liability company named “Davis Heights” that bought the property was registered on July 22. Delaware is a popular state for new businesses, primarily for its “business friendly” laws that for decades have included no requirement for disclosure of ownership.

As of 2023, there were more than 2 million companies incorporated in Delaware, with almost 300,000 in that year alone; 68 percent of all Fortune 500 companies are incorporated in the state. Amelia Pollard, writing in the American Prospect in 2021, described the state’s lax incorporation laws “as license for anyone to create shell companies that can be used to hide or launder money, evade taxes, or keep secret any kind of financial transaction.”

According to state records, the company’s registered Massachusetts agent is attorney Patrick M. Delaney of the Danvers-based law firm Marsh, Moriarty, Ontell & Golder. Delaney did not respond to email or phone messages requesting comment. The property’s selling agent, Ali Maloney of AMG Realty, told the Independent she had “no comment” on the new owners.

Previous property manager Lisa Martin — formerly Lisa Meads — said she had “no idea” who the new property owners are. “I didn’t ask because I don’t care,” Martin said. (The Independent’s past reporting identifies the property manager as Lisa Meads, but she changed her name after marrying Robert Martin in April, she told the Independent on Aug. 12.)

The property was purchased by Van Dereck in 1986, and he housed his employees and friends there as well as in other buildings he owned. Following his death in 2019, his $17-million estate was bequeathed to his wife, Helen Haunstrup. But in 2020, after a dementia diagnosis, she was declared unfit to manage the estate.

The estate has since been managed by the Van Derecks’ longtime financial adviser, Bernard McEneaney, who also became Haunstrup’s conservator in 2021.

Code Violations

Since 2020, the Van Dereck Trust, which held the Napiville property, has been cited for a litany of health code violations, including a cesspool considered a failed septic system, unsafe decking, hazardous electrical work, mold, and leaking roofs and ceilings. The trust also accrued $19,200 in fines for ignoring health orders from the town.

In January, McEneaney and Martin wrote to the tenants that the trust intended to sell Napiville. In their notice, which asked tenants to move out by April 1, McEneaney and Martin said the trust could not afford to comply with all of the orders from the town.

Despite being in sole control of the estate, McEneaney also told his tenants he did not have authority to make certain repairs like hooking up to the town sewer system.

Provincetown’s board of health met in March and April to determine deadlines for repairs to the property. When McEneaney and Martin failed to meet the deadlines, the board voted on May 16 to take the Van Dereck Trust to housing court. The town intended to request a receiver, or a third-party property manager, to take over the property and bring it up to code.

But the sale of the property puts that plan on pause, said Community Development Director Tim Famulare. According to Famulare, the new owner “needs to be given notice of the violations and an opportunity to make corrections before a court will appoint a receiver.” The Van Dereck Trust still has not paid the $19,200 in fines, Famulare said, and town counsel is considering next steps.

Famulare said that the town met with “representatives of the new owner” on Aug. 12 to provide them with information about the property’s unaddressed health code violations. Famulare did not respond to a follow-up inquiry requesting further information about the new owners, but he said that town staff provided the owners with a deadline to appear before the board of health with plans for repairs by October.

Martin said that the trust sold the property as a result of the town’s actions. “It would have been different if the town didn’t put us through this,” Martin said. “It is not something we wanted to do. We wanted to work on each unit.”

Tenants and Housing Court

What happens to the tenants living in Napiville now will be left to the discretion of the new owners, said housing attorney Robert Lowe. According to several tenants that the Independent spoke to this week, at least seven units are still occupied. “When you buy a piece of real estate that has tenants, you take on the tenants,” Lowe said. “You also buy the misdeeds of the previous owner.”

And whether the new owner will find success in court eviction proceedings could depend on whether there are still health code violations, Lowe said. “The tenants have the same right to object to an eviction, given the conditions.”

According to court documents, Southeast Housing Court Judge Anne Kenney Chaplin ruled against the Van Dereck Trust in March in an eviction proceeding that McEneaney initiated after a tenant, Chris Passaretti, reported a leaking roof to the town. Chaplin ordered the payment of damages to the tenant totaling $5,825. McEneaney has appealed the order.

McEneaney did not respond to a request for comment for this story.